
(ilass 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




JEFFERSON DAVIS 
After his prison life 



Copyright. 1867, by Anderson 



Dixie After the War 

An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing 
in the Sowth, During the Twelve Years 
Succeeding the Fall of Richmond. 



By 

Myrta Lockett Avary 

Author of "A Virginia Girl in the Civil War" 



With an Introduction by 

General Clement A« Evans 

Illustrated from old painting?, daguerreotypes 
and rare photographs 




New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 

1906 



• Ah 



Ojpyfight, J906, by Doubleday, Page & Company 
Poblisfaed September, J906 

All rights reserved, 

including that of translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 



LIBRARY ef CONGRESS 
Two Gouies Kecelvwl 



AUG iB I 

CLASS i^ AAC, No, 



Zo 

THE MEMORY OF MY BROTHER, 

PHILIP LOCKETT, 

(First Lieutenant, Company G, 14th Virginia 'Jnfantry, Armistead's Brigade, Pickett's 
Division, C.S.A.) 

E7itering the Confederate Army, when hardly more 
than a lad, he followed General Robert E. 
Lee for four years, surrendering at Appo- 
mattox. He was in Pickett's immortal 
charge at Gettysburg, and with 
Armistead when Armistead 
fell on Cemetery Hill. 



The faces I see before me are those of young 
men. Had you not been this I would not have ap- 
peared alone as the defender of my southland, but 
for love of her I break my silence and speak to 
you. Before you lies the future — a future full of 
golden promise, full of recompense for noble en- 
deavor, full of national glory before which the 
world will stand amazed. Let me beseech you to 
lay aside all rancor, and all bitter sectional feeling, 
and take your place In the rank of those who will 
bring about a conciliation out of which will issue a 
reunited country. — From an address by Jefferson 
Davis in his last years, to the young men of the 
South 



INTRODUCTION 

This book may be called a revelation. It seems to me 
a body of discoveries that should not be kept from the 
public — discoveries which have origin In many sources 
but are here brought together in one book for the first 
time. 

No book hitherto published portrays so fully and 
graphically the social conditions existing in the South 
for the twelve years following the fall of Richmond, 
none so vividly presents race problems. It is the kind 
of history a witness gives. The author received from 
observers and participants the larger part of the inci- 
dents and anecdotes which she employs. Those who 
lived during reconstruction are passing away so rapidly 
that data, unless gathered now, can never be had thus 
at first hand ; every year increases the difficulty. Mrs. 
Avary's experience as author, editor and journalist, her 
command of shorthand and her social connections have 
opened up opportunities not usually accessible to one 
person ; added to this is the balance of sympathy which 
she Is able to strike as a Southern woman who has 
sojourned much at the North. In these pages she ren- 
ders a public service. She aids the American to better 
understanding of his country's past and clearer concept 
of Its present. 

In connection with the book's genesis, It may be said 
that the author grew up after the war on a large Vir- 
ginia plantation where her parents kept open house In 
the true Southern fashion. Two public roads which 
united at their gates, were thoroughfares linking county- 
towns In Virginia and North Carolina, and were much 



INTRODUCTION— Co«/f««^i 

traveled by jurists, lawyers and politicians on their way 
to and from various court sittings; these gentlemen often 
found it both convenient and pleasant to stop for supper 
and over night at Lombardy Grove, particularly as a 
son of the house was of their guild. Perhaps few of 
the company thus gathered realised what an earnest 
listener they had in the little girl, Myrta, who sat intent 
at her father's or brother's knee, drinking in eagerly 
the discussions and stories. To impressions and infor- 
mation so acquired much was added through family 
correspondence with relatives and friends in Petersburg, 
Richmond, Atlanta, the Carolinas; also, in experiences 
related by these friends and relatives when hospitalities 
were exchanged; interesting and eventful diaries, too, 
were at the author's disposal. Such was her uncon- 
scious preparation for the writing of this book. Her 
conscious preparation was a tour of several Southern 
States recently undertaken for the purpose of collect- 
ing fresh data and substantiating information already 
possessed. 

While engaged, for a season, in journalism in New 
York, she put out her first Southern book, " A Virginia 
Girl in the Civil War" (1903). This met with such 
warm welcome that she was promptly called upon for 
a second dealing with post-bellum life from a woman's 
viewpoint. The result was the Southern journey men- 
tioned, the accidental discovery and presentment ( 1905) 
of the war journal of Mrs. James Chestnut ("A Diary 
From Dixie"), and the writing of the present volume 
which, I think, exceeds her commission, inasmuch as it 
is not only what is known as a "woman's book" but 
is a "man's book" also, exhibiting a masculine grasp, 
explained by its origin, of political situations, and an 
intimate personal tone in dealing with the lighter social 
side of things, possible only to a woman's pen. It is a 



INTRODUCTION— Co«/f«H^i 

very unusual book. All readers may not accept the 
author's conclusions, but I think that all must be 
interested in what she says and impressed with her 
spirit of fairness and her painstaking effort to present 
a truthful picture of an extraordinary social and political 
period in our national life. Her work stimulates inter- 
est in Southern history. A safe prophecy is that this 
book will be the precursor of as many post-bellum 
memoirs of feminine authorship as was "A Virginia 
Girl " of memoirs of war-time. 

No successor can be more comprehensive, as a glance 
at the table of contents will show. The tragedy, 
pathos, corruption, humour, and absurdities of the mili- 
tary dictatorship and of reconstruction, the topsy-turvy 
conditions generally, domestic upheaval, negroes voting, 
Black and Tan Conventions and Legislatures, disorder 
on plantations, Loyal Leagues and Freedmen's Bureaus, 
Ku Klux and Red Shirts, are presented with a vividness 
akin to the camera's. A wide interest Is appealed to in 
the earlier chapters narrating incidents connected with 
Mr. Lincoln's visit to Richmond, Mr. Davis' journey- 
ings, capture and imprisonment, the arrest of Vice-Presi- 
dent Stephens and the effort to capture General Toombs. 
Those which deal with the Federal occupation of 
Columbia and Richmond at once rivet attention. The 
most full and graphic description of the situation in 
the latter city just after the war, that has yet been pro- 
duced. Is given, and I think the Interpretation of Mr. 
Davis' course In leaving Richmond Instead of remain- 
ing and trying to enter Into peace negotiations, is a 
point not hitherto so clearly taken. 

As a bird's-eye view of the South after the war, 
the book Is expositive of Its title, every salient feature 
of the time and territory being brought under observa- 
tion. The States upon which attention Is chiefly focussed, 



INTRODUCTION— Continued 

however, are Virginia and South Carolina, two showing 
reconstruction at its best and worst. The reader does 
not need assurance that this volume cost the author 
years of well-directed labour; hasty effort could not 
have produced a work of such depth, breadth and 
variety. It will meet with prompt welcome, I am 
sure, and its value will not diminish with years. 

Clement A. Evans. 
Atlanta, Ga. 



CONTENTS 

PAQB 

Chapter I. The Falling Cross ... 3 
Chapter II. "When This Cruel War is 

Over" 9 

Chapter III. The Army of the Union: 

The Children AND THE Flag . . . 15 

Chapter IV. The Coming of Lincoln . 29 
Chapter V. The Last Capital of the 

Confederacy 47 

Chapter VI. The Counsel of Lee . . 67 

Chapter VII. "The Saddest Good Friday" 77 

Chapter VIII. The Wrath of the North JSg 
Chapter IX. The Chaining of Jefferson 

Davis loi 

Chapter X. Our Friends, the Enemy . 107 
Chapter XI. Buttons, Lovers,.Oaths, War 

Lords, and Prayers for Presidents . 123 

Chapter XII. Clubbed to His Knees . 139 
Chapter XIII. New Fashions: A Little 

Bonnet and an Alpaca Skirt . . .147 
Chapter XIV. The General in the Corn- 
field 155 

Chapter XV. Tournaments and Starva- - 

TioN Parties 167 

Chapter XVI. The Bondage of the Free 179 

Chapter XVII. Back to Voodooism . . 201 

Chapter XVIII. The Freedmen^s Bureau 209 
Chapter XIX. The Prisoner of Fortress 

Monroe 219 

Chapter XX. Reconstruction Oratory . v^ 229 

Chapter XXI. The Prisoner Free . . 237 



CONTENTS— Co«//;»/^^ 

PAGE 

Chapter XXII. A Little Plain History 247 
Chapter XXIII. The Black and Tan Con- 
vention: The "Midnight Constitu- 
tion'' 253 

Chapter XXIV. Secret Societies: Loyal 
League, White Camelias, White 
Brotherhood, Pale Faces, Ku Klux . 263 
Chapter XXV. The Southern Ballot-Box 281 
Chapter XXVI. The White Child . . 297 
Chapter XXVII. Schoolmarms and Other 

Newcomers 311 

Chapter XXVIII. The Carpet-Bagger . 325 
Chapter XXIX. The Devil on the Santee 

(A Rice-Planter's Story) .... 341 
Chapter XXX. Battle for the State- 
House 353 

Chapter XXXI. Crime Against Woman- 
hood 377 

Chapter XXXII. . Race Prejudice . -391 
Chapter XXXIII. Memorial Day and 
Decoration Day. Confederate Socie- 
ties 405 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
Jefferson Davis Frontispiece 

FACING PAGH 

The Ruins of Millwood 6 

Mrs. Jefferson Davis lo 

The White House 3^ 

The Governor's Mansion^ Richmond . . 36 

St. Paul's Church 48 

The Last Capitol of the Confederacy . 52 

The Old Bank, Washington, Ga. . . . S^ 

General and Mrs. John H. Morgan . . 62 

The Lee Residence, Richmond ... 68 

Mrs. Robert E. Lee 7^ 

Mrs. Joseph E. Johnston 80 

LiBBY Prison 9^ 

Mrs. David L. Yulee no 

Miss Mary Meade 120 

Mrs. Henry L. Pope 128 

Mrs. William Howell i34 

Mrs. Andrew Gray i34 

Miss Addie Prescott 168 

Mrs. David Urquhart i74 

Mrs. Leonidas Polk 180 

Mrs. Andrew Pickens Calhoun . . .196 

Fortress Monroe 222 

Historical Petit Jury 238 

Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson . . . • 248 

Mme. Octavia Walton Le Vert . . . 248 

Mrs. David R. Williams 268 

Miss Emily V. Mason 3^4 

Mrs. Wade Hampton 3 46 



X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Radical Members of the Legislature of 

South Carolina 354 

The Southern Cross 364 

Mrs. Rebecca Calhoun Pickens Bacon . 406 

Mrs. Roger A. Pryor 412 

Winnie Davis, the Daughter of the Confederacy 4 1 6 



THE FALLING CROSS 



CHAPTER I 

The Falling Cross 

^^^-pTHE SOUTHERN CROSS" and a cross that 
I fell during the burning of Columbia occur 
'*■ to my mind in unison. 

With the Confederate Army gone and Richmond 
open to the Federal Army, her people remembered New 
Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia. New Orleans, where 
"Beast Butler" issued orders giving his soldiers license 
to treat ladies offending them as " women of the town." 
Atlanta, whose citizens were ordered to leave; General 
Hood had protested and Mayor Calhoun had plead the 
cause of the old and feeble, of women that were with 
child; and of them that turned out of their houses had 
nowhere to go, and without money, food, or shelter, 
must perish in woods and waysides. General Sherman 
had replied : " I give full credit to your statements of 
the distress that will be occasioned, yet shall not revoke 
my orders, because they were not designed to meet the 
humanities of the case. You cannot qualify war in 
harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you 
cannot refine it." "The order to depopulate Atlanta 
was obeyed amid agonies and sorrows indescribable," 
Colonel J. H. Keatley, U. S. A., has affirmed. 

There are some who hold with General Sherman 
that the most merciful way to conduct war Is to make 
it as merciless and horrible as possible, and so end it 
the quicker. One objection to this is that it creates in a 
subjugated people such hatred and distrust of the con- 
quering army and government that a generation or two 

3 



4 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

must die out before this passes away; and therefore, in 
a very real sense, the method does not make quick end 
of conflict. 

Richmond remembered how Mayor Goodwin went 
to meet General Sherman and surrendered Colum- 
bia, praying for it his pity and protection. General 
Sherman had said: " Go home and sleep in peace, Mr. 
Mayor. Your city shall be safe." Mayor Goodwin 
returned, praising General Sherman. By next morning, 
the City of Gardens was almost swept from the face 
of the earth. The rabble ("my bummers," General 
Sherman laughingly called his men set apart for such 
work) , pouring into the town, had invaded and sacked 
homes, driving inmates — among these mothers with 
new-born babes — into the streets; they had demolished 
furniture, fired dwellings. 

Houses of worship were not spared. The Methodist 
Church, at whose altar the Sabbath before Rev. 
William Martin had administered the Sacrament to 
over four hundred negroes, was burned. So was the 
Ursuline Convent. This institution was a branch of the 
order in Ohio; it sheltered nuns and students of both 
sections; Protestant and Catholic alike were there in 
sanctuary. One Northern Sister had lost two brothers 
in the Federal Army. Another was joyously hoping to 
find in Sherman's ranks one or more of her five Yankee 
brothers. The shock of that night killed her. A 
Western girl was " hoping yet fearing " to see her kins- 
men. Guards, appointed for protection, aided in 
destruction. Rooms were invaded, trunks rifled. 
Drunken soldiers blew smoke in nuns' faces, saying : 

" Holy I holy ! O yes, we are holy as you ! " And : 
"What do you think of God now? Is not Sherman 
greater ? " Because of the sacred character of the estab- 
lishment, because General Sherman was a Catholic, and 



THE FALLING CROSS 5 

because he had sent assurances of protection to the 
Mother Superior, they had felt safe. But they had 
to go. _ ^ 

" I marched in the procession through the blazing 
streets," wrote the Western girl, "venerable Father 
O'Connell at the head holding high the crucifix, the black- 
robed Mother Superior and the religieiises following 
with their charges, the white-faced, frightened girls 
and children, all in line and in perfect order. They 
sought the Catholic church for safety, and the Sisters 
put the little ones to sleep on the cushioned pews; 
then the children, driven out by roystering soldiers, ran 
stumbling and terror-stricken into the graveyard and 
crouched behind gravestones." 

One soldier said he was sorry for the women and 
children of South Carolina, but the hotbed of secession 
must be destroyed. " But I am not a South Caroli- 
nian," retorted the Western girl, " I am from Ohio. 
Our Mother Superior was in the same Convent in Ohio 
with General Sherman's sister and daughter." "The 
General ought to know that," he responded quickly. 
" If you are from Ohio — that's my state — I'll help you." 
For answer, she pointed to the Convent; the cross above 
it was falling. 

They recur to my mind in unison — ^that cross, sacred 
alike to North and South, falling above a burning city, 
and the falling Southern Cross, Dixie's beautiful battle- 
flag. 

Two nuns, conferring apart if it would not be well 
to take the children into the woods, heard a deep, sad 
voice saying: "Your position distresses me greatly!" 
Startled, they turned to perceive a Federal officer beside 
a tombstone just behind them. "Are you a Catholic," 
they asked, "that you pity us?" "No; simply a man 
and a soldier." Dawn came, and with it some Irish 



6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

soldiers to early Mass. Appalled, they cried: "O, 
this will never do ! Send for the General I The Gen- 
eral would never permit it I" 

At reveille all arson, looting and violence had ceased 
as by magic, even as conflagration had started as by 
magic in the early hours of the night when four signal 
rockets went up from as many corners of the town. 
But the look of the desolated city in the glare of day- 
light was indescribable. Around the church were 
broken and empty trunks and boxes; in the entrance 
stood a harp with broken strings. 

General Sherman came riding by; the Mother Supe- 
rior summoned him ; calmly facing the Attila of his day, 
she said in her clear, sweet voice : *' General, this is 
how you keep your promise to me, a cloistered nun, and 
these my sacred charges." General Sherman answered: 
" Madame, it is all the fault of your negroes, who gave 
my soldiers liquor to drink." 

General Sherman, in official report, charged the burn- 
ing of Columbia to General Hampton, and in his 
*' Memoirs " gives his reason : " I confess that I did so 
to shake the faith of his people in him" ; and asserts that 
his "right wing," "having utterly ruined Columbia," 
passed on to Winnsboro. 

Living witnesses tell how that firing was done. ' A 
party of soldiers would enter a dwelling, search and 
rifle; and in departing throw wads of burning paper into 
closets, corners, under beds, into cellars. Another party 
would repeat the process. Family and servants would 
follow after, removing wads and extinguishing flames 
until ready to drop. Devastation for secession, that 
was what was made plain in South Carolina; if the hot- 
bed of " heresy " had to be destroyed for her sins, what 
of the Confederate Capital, Richmond, the long- 
desired, the " heart of the Rebellion " ? 



WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER^' 



CHAPTER II 

"When This Cruel War is Over" 

"When this cruel war is over" was the name of one 
of our war songs. So many things we planned to do 
when the war should be over. With the fall of the 
Southern Capital the war was over, though we did not 
know it at once. 

Again and again has the story been told of Sunday, 
April 2, in Richmond. The message brought into St. 
Paul's Church from Lee to Davis, saying Richmond 
could no longer be defended; the quiet departure of 
the President; the noble bearing of the beloved rector, 
Rev. Dr. MInnegerode ; the self-control of the troubled 
people remaining; the solemn Communion Service; 
these are all a part now of American history of that 
sad time when brother strove with brother; a time whose 
memories should never be revived for the purpose of 
keeping rancor alive, but that should be unfalteringly 
remembered, and every phase of it diligently studied, 
that our common country may in no wise lose the lesson 
for which we of the North and South paid so tremen- 
dous a price. 

Into Dr. Hoge's church a hurried messenger came. 
The pastor read the note handed up to him, bowed his 
head in silent prayer, and then said : " Brethren, trying 
scenes are before us; General Lee has suffered reverses. 
But remember that God is with us in the storm as well 
as in the calm. Go quietly to your homes, and what- 
ever may be in store for us, let us not forget that we 
are Christian men and women. The blessing of the 

9 



lo DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be with us all. 
Amen." So other pastors commended their people. 

None who lived through that Sabbath could forget 
it. Our Government, our soldiers, hurrying off ; women 
saying goodbye to husband, lover, brother, or friend, 
and urging haste ; everybody who could go, going, when 
means of transportation were insufficient for Govern- 
ment uses, and "a kingdom for a horse" could not buy 
one — horses brought that day $i,ooo apiece in gold; 
handsome houses full of beautiful furniture left open 
and deserted; people of all sexes, colors and classes run- 
ning hither and yon; boxes and barrels dragged about 
the streets from open commissary stores ; explosions as of 
earthquakes; houses aflame; the sick and dying brought 
out; streets running liquid fire where liquor had been 
emptied into gutters, that it might not be available for 
invading troops; bibulous wretches in the midst of the 
terror, brooding over such waste; drunken roughs and 
looters, white and black, abroad; the penitentiary dis- 
gorging striped hordes; the ribald songs, the anguish, 
the fears, the tumult ; the noble calm of brave souls, the 
patient endurance of sweet women and gentle chil- 
dren — these are all a part of American history, making 
thereon a page blistered with tears for some; and for 
others, illumined with symbols of triumph and glory. 

And yet, we are of one blood, and the triumph and 
glory of one is the triumph and glory of the other; the 
anguish and tears of one the anguish and tears of the 
other; and the shame of one is the shame of both. 

The fire was largely due to accident. In obedience 
to law, Confederate forces, in evacuating the city, fired 
tobacco warehouses, ordnance and other Government 
stores, gunboats in the James and bridges spanning the 
river. A wind, it is said, carried sparks towards the 
town, igniting first one building and then another; incen- 




MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS 



"WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER" n 

diarism lent aid that pilfering might go on in greater 
security through public disorder and distress. 

During the night detonations of exploding gunboats 
could be heard for miles, the noise and shock and lurid 
lights adding to the wretchedness of those within the 
city, and the anxieties of those who beheld its burnings 
from afar; among these, the advancing enemy, who 
was not without uneasy speculations lest he find Rich- 
mond, as Napoleon found Moscow, in ashes. General 
Shepley, U. S. A., has described the scene witnessed 
from his position near Petersburg, as a most beautiful 
and awful display of fireworks, the heavens at three 
o'clock being suddenly filled with bursting shells, red 
lights, Roman candles, fiery serpents, golden fountains, 
falling stars. 

Nearly all the young men were gone ; the fire depart- 
ment, without a full force of operatives, without horses, 
without hose, was unable to cope with the situation. 
Old men, women and children, and negro servants 
fought the flames as well as they could. 

Friends and relatives who were living in Richmond 
then have told me about their experiences until I seem 
to have shared them. One who appears in these pages 
as Matoaca, gives me this little word-picture of the 
morning after the evacuation: 

" I went early to the War Department, where I had 
been employed, to get letters out of my desk. The desk 
was open. Everything was open. Our President, our 
Government, our soldiers were gone. The papers were 
found and I started homeward. We saw rolls of smoke 
ahead, and trod carefully the fiery streets. Suddenly 
my companion caught my arm, crying: 'Is not that 
the sound of cavalry?' We hurried, almost run- 
ning. Soon after we entered the house, some one 
exclaimed: 



12 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

" ' God help us 1 The United States flag Is flying over 
our Capitol I ' 

" I laid my head on Uncle Randolph's knee and shiv- 
ered. He placed his hand lightly on my head and 
said: * Trust in God, my child. They can not be cruel 
to us. We are defenseless.' He had fought for that 
flag in Mexico. He had stood by Virginia, but he had 
always been a Unionist. I thought of New Orleans, 
Atlanta, Columbia." 

An impression obtained that to negro troops was 
assigned the honor of first entering Richmond, hauling 
down the Southern Cross and hoisting in its place the 
Stars and Stripes. " Harper's Weekly " said : " It was 
fitting that the old flag should be restored by soldiers of 
the race to secure whose eternal degradation that flag 
had been pulled down." Whether the assignment was 
made or not, I am unable to say; if It was, it was not 
very graceful or wise on the part of our conquerors, and 
had It been carried out, would have been prophetic of 
what came after — the subversion. 

White troops first entered Richmond, and a white 
man ran up the flag of the Union over our Capitol. 
General Shepley says that to his aide. Lieutenant de 
Peyster, he accorded the privilege as a reward for caring 
for his old flag that had floated over City Hall in New 
Orleans. On the other hand, it is asserted that Major 
Stevens performed the historic oflice, running up the 
two small guidons of the Fourth Massachusetts Cav- 
alry, which were presently displaced by the large flag 
Lieutenant de Peyster had been carrying in the holster 
at his saddle-bow for many a day, that It might be in 
readiness for the use to which he now put it. 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 



CHAPTER III 

The Army of the Union: The Children and 
THE Flag 

The Army of the Union entered Richmond with 
almost the solemnity of a processional entering church. 
It was occasion for solemn procession, that entrance into 
our burning city where a stricken people, flesh of their 
flesh and bone of their bone, watched in terror for their 
coming. 

Our broken-hearted people closed their windows and 
doors and shut out as far as they could all sights and 
sounds. Yet through closed lattice there came that 
night to those living near Military Headquarters echoes 
of rejoicings. 

Early that fateful morning. Mayor Mayo, Judge 
Meredith and Judge Lyons went out to meet the incom- 
ing foe and deliver up the keys of the city. Their coach 
of state was a dilapidated equipage, the horses being but 
raw-boned shadows of better days when there were corn 
and oats in the land. They carried a piece of wall- 
paper, on the unflowered side of which articles of sur- 
render were inscribed in dignified terms setting forth 
that " it is proper to formally surrender the City of 
Richmond, hitherto Capital of the Confederate States 
of America." Had the words been engraved on satin 
in letters of gold, Judge Lyons (who had once repre- 
sented the United States at the Court of St. James) 
could not have performed the honours of introduction 
between the municipal party and the Federal officers 
with statelier grace, nor could the latter have received 

15 



i6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the instrument of submission with profounder courtesy. 
" We went out not knowing what we would encounter," 
Mayor Mayo reported, "and we met a group of Ches- 
terfields." Major Atherton H. Stevens, of General 
Weitzel's staff, was the immediate recipient of the wall- 
paper document. 

General Weitzel and his associates were merciful to 
the stricken city; they aided her people in extinguishing 
the flames; restored order and gave protection. Guards 
were posted wherever needed, with instructions to re- 
press lawlessness, and they did it. To this day, Rich- 
mond people rise up in the gates and praise that Army 
of the Occupation as Columbia's people can never praise 
General Sherman's. Good effect on popular sentiment 
was Immediate. 

Among many similar incidents of the times is this, as 
related by a prominent physician : 

" When I returned from my rounds at Chlmborazo I 
found a Yankee soldier sitting on my stoop with my 
little boy, Walter, playing with the tassels and buttons 
on his uniform. He arose and saluted courteously, and 
told me he was there to guard my property. ' I am 
under orders,' he said, 'to comply with any wish you 
may express.' " 

Dr. GUdersleeve, in an address (June, 1904) before 
the Association of Medical Ofl'icers of the Army and 
Navy, C. S. A., referred to Chlmborazo Hospital as 
" the most noted and largest military hospital in the 
annals of history, ancient or modern." With Its many 
white buildings and tents on Chlmborazo Hill, it looked 
like a town and a military post, which latter It was, with 
Dr. James B. McCaw for Commandant. General 
Weitzel and his staff visited the hospital promptly. 
Dr. McCaw and his corps in full uniform received them. 
Dr. Mott, General Weitzel's Chief Medical Director, 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 17 

exclaimed: "Ain't that old Jim McCaw?" "Yes," 
said "Jim McCaw," "and don't you want a drink?" 
" Invite the General, too," answered Dr. Mott. General 
Weltzel Issued passes to Dr. McCaw and his corps, and 
gave verbal orders that Chlmborazo Confederates 
should be taken care of under all circumstances. He 
proposed to take Dr. McCaw and his corps Into the 
Federal service, thus arming him with power to make 
requisition for supplies, medicines, etc., which offer the 
doctor, as a loyal Confederate, was unable to accept. 

Others of our physicians and surgeons found friends 
in Federal ranks. To how many poor Boys In Blue, 
longing for home and kindred, had not they and our 
women ministered! The orders of the Confederate 
Government were that the sick and wounded of both 
armies should be treated alike. True, nobody had the 
best of fare, for we had It not to give. We were with- 
out medicines; It was almost Impossible to get morphia, 
quinine, and other remedies. Quinine was $400 an 
ounce, when It could be bought at all, even In the earlier 
years of the war. Our women became experts in manu- 
facturing substitutes out of native herbs and roots. We 
ran wofully short of dressings and bandages, and bun- 
dles of old rags became treasures priceless. But the 
most cruel shortage was In food. Bitter words In 
Northern papers and by Northern speakers — after our 
defeat intensified, multiplied, and Illustrated — about 
our treatment of prisoners exasperated us. "Will they 
never learn," we asked, "that on such rations as we 
gave our prisoners, our men were fighting in the 
field? We had not food for ourselves; the North 
blockaded us so we could not bring food from outside, 
and refused to exchange prisoners with us. What could 
we do?" 

I wonder how many men now living remember cer- 



1 8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tain loaves of wheaten bread which the women of Rich- 
mond collected with difficulty in the last days of the 
war and sent to Miss Emily V. Mason, our " Florence 
Nightingale," for our own boys. " Boys," Miss Emily 
announced — sick soldiers, if graybeards, were " boys " 
to " Cap'n," as they all called Miss Emily — " I have 
some flour-bread which the ladies of Richmond have 
sent you." Cheers, and other expressions of thankful- 
ness. " The poor, sick Yankees," Miss Emily went on 
falteringly — uneasy countenances in the ward — "can't 
eat corn-bread — " " Give the flour-bread to the poor, 
sick Yankees, Cap'n!" came in cheerful, if quavering 
chorus from the cots. "JVe can eat corn-bread. Gruel 
is good for us. We like mush. Oughtn't to have flour- 
bread nohow." "Poor fellows!" "Cap'n" said 
proudly of their self-denial, " they were tired to death of 
corn-bread in all forms, and it was not good for them, 
for nearly all had intestinal disorders." 

Along with this corn-bread story, I recall how Dr. 
Minnegerode, Protestant, and Bishop Magill, Cath- 
olic, used to meet each other on the street, and the one 
would say: " Doctor, lend me a dollar for a sick Yan- 
kee." And the other: "Bishop, I was about to ask 
you for a dollar for a sick Yankee." And how Annie 
E. Johns, of North Carolina, said she had seen Con- 
federate soldiers take provisions from their own haver- 
sacks and give them to Federal prisoners en route to 
Salisbury. As matron, she served in hospitals for the 
sick and wounded of both armies. She said: "When 
I was in a hospital for Federals, I felt as if these men 
would defend me as promptly as our own." 

In spite of the pillage, vandalism and violence they 
suffered, Southern women were not so biassed as to think 
that the gentle and brave could be found only among 
the wearers of the gray. Even in Sherman's Army 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 19 

were the gentle and brave upon whom fell obloquy due 
the "bummers" only. I have heard many stories like 
that of the boyish guard who, tramping on his beat 
around a house he was detailed to protect, asked of a 
young mother: " Why does your baby cry so ? " She 
lifted her pale face, saying: " My baby is hungry. I 
have had no food — and so — I have no nourishment for 
him." Tears sprang into his eyes, and he said: "I 
will be relieved soon ; I will draw my rations and bring 
them to you." He brought her his hands full of all 
good things he could find — sugar, tea, and coffee. And 
like that of two young Philadelphlans who left grateful 
hearts behind them along the line of Sherman's march 
because they made a business of seeing how many 
women and children they could relieve and protect. In 
Columbia, during the burning, men in blue sought to 
stay ravages wrought by other men In blue. I hate to 
say hard things of men In blue, and I must say all the 
good things I can; because many were unworthy to 
wear the blue, many who were worthy have carried 
reproach. 

On that morning of the occupation, our women sat 
behind closed windows, unable to consider the new path 
stretching before them. The way seemed to end at a 
wall. Could they have looked over and seen what lay 
ahead, they would have lost what little heart of hope 
they had; could vision have extended far enough, they 
might have won it back; they would have beheld some 
things unbelievable. For instance, they would have 
seen the little boy who played with the buttons and 
tassels, grown to manhood and wearing the uniform 
of an officer of the United States; they would have seen 
Southern men walking the streets of Richmond and 
other Southern cities with "U. S. A." on their haver- 
sacks; and Southern men and Northern men fighting 



20 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

side by side in Cuba and the Philippines, and answering 
alike to the name, " Yankees." 

On the day of the occupation. Miss Mason and Mrs. 
Rhett went out to meet General Weitzel and stated 
that Mrs. Lee was an invalid, unable to walk, and that 
her house, like that of General Chilton and others, was 
in danger of fire. "What! " he exclaimed, " Mrs. Lee 
in danger? General Fitz Lee's mother, who nursed 
me so tenderly when I was sick at West Point ! What 
can I do for her? Command me! " "We mean Mrs. 
Robert E. Lee," they said. " We want ambulances to 
move Mrs. Lee and other invalids and children to 
places of safety." Using his knee as a writing-table, 
he wrote an order for five ambulances; and the ladies 
rode off. Miss Emily's driver became suddenly and 
mysteriously tipsy and she had to put an arm around 
him and back up the vehicle herself to General Chilton's 
door, where his children, her nieces, were waiting, their 
dollies close clasped. 

" Come along, Virginia aristocracy! " hiccoughed the 
befuddled Jehu. " I won't bite you ! Come along, 
Virginia aristocracy!" 

A passing officer came to the rescue, and the party 
were soon safely housed in the beautiful Rutherford 
home. 

The Federals filled Libby Prison with Confeder- 
ates, many of whom were paroled prisoners found in 
the city. Distressed women surrounded the prison, beg- 
ging to know if loved ones were there; others plead to 
take food inside. Some called, while watching win- 
dows : " Let down your tin cup and I will put some- 
thing in it." Others cried: " Is my husband in there? 
O, William, answer me If you are ! " " Is my son, 
Johnny, here?" "O, please somebody tell me if my 
boy is in the prison ! " Miss Emily passed quietly 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 21 

through the crowd, her hospital reputation securing 
admission to the prison; she was able to render much 
relief to those within, and to subdue the anxiety of those 
without. 

"Helgho, Johnny Reb! in there now where we used 
to be!" yelled one Yankee complacently. "Been In 
there myself. D — d sorry for you, Johnnies ! " called 
up another. 

A serio-comic incident of the grim period reveals the 
small boy in an attitude different from that of him who 
was dandled on the Federal knee. Some tiny lads 
mounted guard on the steps of a house opposite Mili- 
tary Headquarters, and, being intensely ''rebel" and 
having no other means of expressing defiance to In- 
vaders, made faces at the distinguished occupants of the 
establishment across the way. General Patrick, Pro- 
vost-Marshal General, sent a courteously worded note 
to their father, calling his attention to these juvenile 
demonstrations. He explained that while he was not 
personally disturbed by the exhibition, members of his 
staff were, and that the children might get into trouble. 
The proper guardians of the wee insurgents, acting 
upon this information, their first of the battery unllm- 
bered on their door-step, saw that the artillery was 
retired in good order, and peace and normal counte- 
nances reigned over the scene of the late engagements. 

I open a desultory diary Matoaca kept, and read: 

" If the United States flag were my flag — if I loved 
it — I would not try to make people pass under it who 
do not want to. I would not let them. It is natural 
that we should go out of our way to avoid walking 
under It, a banner that has brought us so much pain 
and woe and want — that has desolated our whole land. 

" Some Yankees stretched a flag on a cord from tree 
to tree across the way our children had to come into 



22 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Richmond. The children saw it and cried out; and the 
driver was instructed to go another way. A Federal 
soldier standing near — a guard, sentinel or picket — 
ordered the driver to turn back and drive under that 
flag. He obeyed, and the children were weeping and 
wailing as the carriage rolled under it." 

In Raymond, Mississippi, negro troops strung a flag 
across the street and drove the white children under it. 
In Atlanta, two society belles were arrested because 
they made a detour rather than walk under the flag. 
Such desecration of the symbol of liberty and union 
was committed in many places by those in power. 

The Union flag is my flag and I love it, and, there- 
fore, I trust that no one may ever again pass under it 
weeping. Those little children were not traitors. 
They were simply human. If in the sixties situations 
had been reversed, and the people of New York, Bos- 
ton and Chicago had seen the Union flag flying over 
guns that shelled these cities, their children would have 
passed under it weeping and wailing. Perhaps, too, 
some would have sat on doorsteps and " unbeknownst " 
to their elders have made faces at commanding generals 
across the way; while others climbing upon the enemy's 
knees would have played with gold tassels and brass 
buttons. 

Our newspapers, with the exception of the "Whig" 
and the " Sentinel," shared In the general wreckage. A 
Northern gentleman brought out a tiny edition of the 
former in which appeared two military orders promul- 
gating the policy General Weltzel intended to pursue. 
One paragraph read: "The people of Richmond are 
assured that we come to restore to them the blessings 
of peace and prosperity under the flag of the Union." 

General Shepley, Military Governor by Weltzel's ap- 
pointment, repeated this in substance, adding : " The 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 23 

soldiers of the command will abstain from any offensive 
or insulting words or gestures towards the citizens." 
With less tact and generosity, he proceeded: "The 
Armies of the Rebellion having abandoned their efforts 
to enslave the people of Virginia, have endeavoured to 
destroy by fire their Capital. . . . The first duty 
of the Army of the Union will be to save the city 
doomed to destruction by the Armies of the Rebellion." 
That fling at our devoted army would have served as 
a clarion call to us — had any been needed — to remem- 
ber the absent. 

" It will be a blunder in us not to overlook that blun- 
der of General Shepley's," urged Uncle Randolph.* 
"The important point is that the policy of conciliation 
is to be pursued." With the "Whig" in his hand, 
Uncle Randolph told Matoaca that the Thursday before 
Virginia seceded a procession of prominent Virginians 
marched up Franklin Street, carrying the flag of the 
Union and singing " Columbia," and that he was with 
them. •^, 

The family questioned if his mind were wandering, 
when he went on: "The breach can be healed — in 
spite of the bloodshed — if only the Government will 
pursue the right course now. Both sides are tired of 
hating and being hated, killing and being killed — this 
war between brothers — if Weitzel's orders reflect the 
mind of Lincoln and Grant — and they must — all may 
be well — before so very long." 

* Gentlemen of the old regime would say: "A woman's name 
should appear in print but twice— when she marries and when she 
dies " ; the " Society " page of to-day was unknown to them. They 
objected to newspaper notoriety for themselves, and were prone 
to sign pseudonyms to their newspaper articles. Matoaca, loyal to 
her uncles prejudices, requires that I print him only by the name 
she gives him and the title, one which was affectionately applied 
to him by many who were not his kin. To give his real name in 
full would be to give hers. 



24 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

These were the men of the Union Army who 
saved Richmond: The First Brigade, Third Division 
(Deven's Division) , Twenty- fourth Army Corps, Army 
of the James, Brevet-Brigadier-General Edward H. 
Ripley commanding. This brigade was composed of 
the Eleventh Connecticut, Thirteenth New Hampshire, 
Nineteenth Wisconsin, Eighty-first New York, Ninety- 
eighth New York, One Hundredth and Thirty-ninth 
New York, Convalescent detachment from the second 
and third divisions of Sheridan's reinforcements. 

"This Brigade led the column in the formal entry, 
and at the City Hall halted while I reported to Major- 
General Weitzel," says General Ripley. " General 
Weitzel had taken up his position on the platform of 
the high steps at the east front of the Confederate 
Capitol, and there, looking down into a gigantic crater 
of fire, suffocated and blinded with the vast volumes 
of smoke and cinders which rolled up over and envel- 
oped us, he assigned me and my brigade to the appar- 
ently hopeless task of stopping the conflagration, and 
suppressing the mob of stragglers, released criminals, 
and negroes, who had far advanced in pillaging the city. 
He had no suggestions to make, no orders to give, 
except to strain every nerve to save the city, crowded 
as it was with women and children, and the sick and 
wounded of the Army of Northern Virginia. 

"After requesting Major-General Weitzel to have 
all the other troops marched out of the city, I took the 
Hon. Joseph Mayo, then Mayor of Richmond, with me 
to the City Hall, where I established my headquarters. 
With the help of the city officials, I distributed my regi- 
ment quickly in different sections. The danger to the 
troops engaged In this terrific fire-fighting was infinitely 
enhanced by the vast quantities of powder and shells 
stored in the section burning. Into this sea of fire, 



THE ARMY OF THE UNION 25 

with no less courage and self-devotion than as though 
fighting for their own firesides and families, stripped 
and plunged the brave men of the First Brigade. 

" Meanwhile, detachments scoured the city, warning 
every one from the streets to their houses. . . 
Every one carrying plunder was arrested. 
The ladies of Richmond thronged my headquarters, 
imploring protection. They were sent to their homes 
under the escort of guards, who were afterwards posted 
in the center house of each block, and made responsible 
for the safety of the neighborhood. . . . Many 
painful cases of destit^ition were brought to light by 
the presence of these safeguards in private houses, and 
the soldiers divided rations with their temporary wards, 
in many cases, until a general system of relief was 
organised."* 



* General Ripley, in " Confederate Column " of the " Times- 
Dispatch," Richmond, Virginia, May 29, 1904. 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 



CHAPTER IV 

The Coming of Lincoln 

The South did not know that she had a friend in 
Abraham Lincoln, and the announcement of his pres- 
ence in Richmond was not calculated to give comfort 
or assurance. 

" Abraham Lincoln came unheralded. No bells rang, 
no guns boomed in salute. He held no levee. There 
was no formal jubilee. He must have been heartless 
as Nero to have chosen that moment for a festival of 
triumph. He was not heartless." So a citizen of Rich- 
mond, who was a boy at the time, and out doors and 
everywhere, seeing everything, remembers the coming 
of Lincoln. 

One of the women who sat behind closed windows 
says : " If there was any kind of rejoicing, it must have 
been of a very somber kind; the sounds of it did not 
reach me." Another who looked through her shutters, 
said: "I saw him in a carriage, the horses galloping 
through the streets at a break-neck speed, his escort 
clearing the way. The negroes had to be cleared out 
of the way, they impeded his progress so." He was In 
Richmond April 4 and 5, and visited the Davis Man- 
sion, the Capitol, Libby Prison, Castle Thunder and 
other places. 

His coming was as simple, business-like, and unpre- 
tentious as the man himself. Anybody who happened 
to be In the neighbourhood on the afternoon of April 4, 
might have seen a boat manned by ten or twelve sailors 
pull ashore at a landing above Rockett's, and a tall, 

29 



30 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

lank man step forth, " leading a little boy." By resem- 
blance to pictures that had been scattered broadcast, 
this man could have been easily recognized as Abraham 
Lincoln. The little boy was Tad, his son. Major 
Penrose, who commanded the escort, says Tad was not 
with the President; Admiral Porter, General Shepley 
and others say he was. 

Accompanied by Admiral Porter and several other 
officers and escorted by ten sailors. President Lincoln, 
" holding Tad's hand," walked through the city, which 
was in part a waste of ashes, and the smoke of whose 
burning buildings was still ascending. From remains 
of smouldering bridges, from wreckage of gunboats, 
from Manchester on the other side of the James, and 
from the city's streets smoke rose as from a sacrifice to 
greet the President. 

A Northern newspaper man (who related this story 
of himself) recognizing that it was his business to make 
news as well as dispense it, saw some negroes at work 
near the landing where an officer was having debris 
removed, and other negroes idling. He said to this 
one and to that: " Do you know that man? " pointing 
to the tall, lank man who had just stepped ashore. 

"Who is dat man, marster?" 

" Call no man marster. That man set you free. 
That is Abraham Lincoln. Now Is your time to shout. 
Can't you sing, ' God bless you. Father Abraham 1 ' " 

That started the ball rolling. The news spread like 
wild-fire. Mercurial blacks, already excited to fever- 
heat, collected about Mr. Lincoln, impeding his pro- 
gress, kneeling to him, hailing him as "Saviour I" and 
" My Jesus ! " They sang, shouted, danced. One 
woman jumped up and down, shrieking: "Fm free I 
I'm free ! I'm free till I'm fool ! " Some went into the 
regular Voodoo ecstasy, leaping, whirling, stamping, 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 31 

until their clothes were half torn off. Mr. Lincoln made 
a speech, in which he said: 

" My poor friends, you are free — free as air. But 
you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the 
world see that you merit it by your good works. Don't 
let your joy carry you into excesses. Obey God's com- 
mandments and thank Him for giving you liberty, for 
to Him you owe all things. There, now, let me pass 
on. I have little time here and much to do. I want to 
go to the Capitol. Let me pass on." 

Henry J. Raymond speaks of the President as taking 
his hat off and bowing to an old negro man who knelt 
and kissed his hand, and adds : " That bow upset the 
forms, laws and customs of centuries; it was a death- 
shock to chivalry, a mortal wound to caste. Recognize 
a nigger? Faugh!" Which proves that Mr. Ray- 
mond did not know or wilfully misrepresented a people 
who could not make reply. Northern visitors to the 
South may yet see refutation in old sections where 
new ways have not corrupted ancient courtesy, and 
where whites and blacks interchange cordial and 
respectful salutations, though they may be perfect 
strangers to each other, when passing on the road. 
If they are not strangers, greeting is usually more 
than respectful and cordial; it is full of neighbourly 
and affectionate interest in each other and each other's 
folks. 

The memories of the living, even of Federal officers 
near President Lincoln, bear varied versions of his visit. 
General Shepley relates that he was greatly surprised 
when he saw the crowd in the middle of the street, 
President Lincoln and little Tad leading, and that Mr. 
Lincoln called out: 

" Hullo, General ! Is that you ? I'm walking around 
looking for Military Headquarters." 



32 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

General Shepley conducted him to our White House, 
where President Lincoln wearily sank into a chair, 
which happened to be that President Davis was wont 
to occupy while writing his letters, a task suffering fre- 
quent interruption from some one or other of his chil- 
dren, who had a way of stealing in upon him at any 
and all times to claim a caress. 

Upon Mr. Lincoln's arrival, or possibly in advance, 
when it was understood that he would come up from 
City Point, there was discussion among our citizens as 
to how he should be received — that is, so far as our atti- 
tude toward him was concerned. There were several 
ways of looking at the problem. Our armies were still 
in the field, and all sorts of rumors were afloat, some 
accrediting them with victories. 

A called meeting was held under the leadership of 
Judge Campbell and Judge Thomas, who, later, with 
General Joseph Anderson and others, waited on Mr. 
Lincoln, to whom they made peace propositions involv- 
ing disbandment of our armies; withdrawal of our sol- 
diers from the field, and reestablishment of state gov- 
ernments under the Union, Virginia Inaugurating this 
course by example and influence. 

Mr. Lincoln had said In proclamation, the Southern 
States " can have peace any time by simply laying down 
their arms and submitting to the authority of the 
Union." It was Inconceivable to many how we could 
ever want to be In the Union again. But wise ones 
said: "Our position Is to be that of conquered prov- 
inces voiceless in the administration of our own affairs, 
or of States with some power, at least, of self-govern- 
ment." Then, there was the dread spectre of confisca- 
tion, proscription, the scaffold. 

Judge Campbell and Judge Thomas reported : " The 
movement for the restoration of the Union Is highly 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 33 

gratifying to Mr. Lincoln; he will give it full sym- 
pathy and cooperation." 

"You people will all come back now," Mr. Lincoln 
had said to Judge Thomas, "and we shall have old 
Virginia home again." 

Many had small faith in these professions of amity, 
and said so. "Lincoln is the man who called out the 
troops and precipitated war," was bitterly objected, 
"and we do not forget Hampton Roads." 

A few built hopes on belief that Mr. Lincoln had 
long been eager to harmonize the sections. Leader of 
these was Judge John A. Campbell, ex-Associate Jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and ex- 
Assistant Secretary of War of the expiring Confed- 
eracy. He had served with Mr. Hunter and Mr. Ste- 
phens on the Hampton Roads Peace Commission, 
knew Mr. Lincoln well, had high regard for him and 
faith in his earnest desire for genuine reconciliation 
between North and South. When the Confederate 
Government left the city, he remained, meaning to try 
to make peace, Mr. Davis, it is said, knowing his pur- 
pose and consenting, but having no hope of its success. 

Only the Christmas before, when peace sentiments 
that led to the Hampton Roads Conference were in the 
air, striking illustrations in Northern journals reflected 
Northern sentiment. One big cartoon of a Christmas 
dinner in the Capitol at Washington, revealed Mr. Lin- 
coln holding wide the doors, and the seceded States 
returning to the family love feast. Olive branches, the 
" Prodigal's Return," and nice little mottoes like " Come 
Home, Our Erring Sisters, Come!" were neatly dis- 
played around the margin. Fatted calves were not to 
be despised by a starving people ; but the less said about 
the pious influences of the " Prodigal's Return " the 
better. That Hampton Roads Conference (February, 



n^ 



34 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

1865) has always been a sore spot. In spite of the com- 
missioners' statements that Mr. Lincoln's only terms 
were "unconditional surrender," many people blamed 
Mr. Davis for the failure of the peace movement; 
others said he was pusillanimous and a traitor for 
sanctioning overtures that had to be made, by Lin- 
coln's requirements, " informally," and, as it were, 
by stealth. 

"We must forget dead issues," our pacificators urged. 
"We have to face the present. The stand Mr. Lincoln 
has taken all along, that the Union is indissoluble and 
that a State can not get out of it however much she 
tries, is as fortunate for us now as it was unlucky once." 

" In or out, what matters it if Yankees rule over us I " 
others declared. 

"Mr. Lincoln is not in favor of outsiders holding 
official reins in the South," comforters responded. "He 
has committed himself on that point to Governor Hahn 
in Louisiana. When Judge Thomas suggested that he 
establish Governor Pierpont here, Mr. Lincoln asked 
straightway, 'Where is Extra Billy?' He struck the 
table with his fist, exclaiming, ' By Jove ! I want that 
old game-cock back here ! ' " 

When in 1862-3 West Virginia seceded from Virginia 
and was received into the bosom of the Union, a few 
"loyal" counties which did not go with her, elected 
Francis H. Pierpont Governor of the old State. At the 
head of sixteen legislators, he posed at Alexandria as 
Virginia's Executive, Mr. Lincoln and the Federal Con- 
gress recognizing him. Our real governor was the 
doughty warrior, William Smith, nick-named "Extra 
Billy " before the war, when he was always asking Con- 
gress for extra appropriations for an ever-lengthening 
stage-coach and mail-route line, which was a great Gov- 
ernment enterprise under his fostering hand. 



•^ tJuijX ^ey^ fx4JL^ UcL. 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 35 

Governor Smith had left with the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, going towards Lynchburg. He had been 
greatly concerned for his family, but his wife had said: 
" I may feel as a woman, but I can act like a man. At- 
tend to your public affairs and I will arrange our family 
matters." The Mansion had barely escaped destruc- 
tion by fire. The Smith family had vacated it to the 
Federals, had been invited to return and then ordered 
to vacate again for Federal occupation. 

Mr. Lincoln said that the legislature that took Vir- 
ginia out of the Union and Governor Letcher, who had 
been In office then, with Governor Smith, his successor, 
and Governor Smith's legislature, must be convened. 
"The Government that took Virginia out of the Union 
Is the Government to bring her back. No other can 
effect It. They must come to the Capitol yonder where 
they voted her out and vote her back." 

Uncle Randolph was one of those who had formally 
called upon Mr, Lincoln at the Davis Mansion. Feeble 
as he was, he was so eager to do some good that he had 
gone out in spite of his niece to talk about the " policy " 
he thought would be best. " I did not say much," he 
reported wistfully. "There were a great many people 
waiting on him. Things look strange at the Capitol. 
Federal soldiers all about, and campfires on the Square. 
Judge Campbell Introduced me. President Lincoln 
turned from him to me, and said: 'You fought for 
the Union In Mexico.' I said, 'Mr. Lincoln, If the 
Union will be fair to Virginia, I will fight for the Union 
again.' I forgot, you see, that I am too old and feeble 
to fight. Then I said quickly, 'Younger men than I, 
Mr. President, will give you that pledge.' V^hat 
did he say? He looked at me hard — and shook my 
hand — and there wasn't any need for him to say any- 
thing." 



36 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Mr. Lincoln's attitude towards Judge Campbell was 
one of confidence and cordiality. He knew the Judge's 
purity and singleness of purpose in seeking leniency for 
the conquered South, and genuine reunion between the 
sections. The Federal commanders understood his de- 
votion and integrity. The newspaper men, in their 
reports, paid respect to his venerable, dignified figure, 
stamped with feebleness, poverty, and a noble sorrow, 
waiting patiently in one of the rooms at the Davis Man- 
sion for audience with Mr. Lincoln. 

None who saw Mr. Lincoln during that visit to Rich- 
mond observed in him any trace of exultation. Walk- 
ing the streets with the negroes crowding about him, 
in the Davis Mansion with the Federal officers paying 
him court and our citizens calling on him, in the car- 
riage with General Weltzel or General Shepley, a 
motley horde following — he was the same, only, as 
those who watched him declared, paler and wearier- 
looking each time they saw him. Uncle Randolph 
reported : 

" There was something like misgiving in his eyes as 
he sat in the carriage with Shepley, gazing upon smok- 
ing ruins on all sides, and a rabble of crazy negroes 
hailing him as ' Saviour ! ' Truly, I never saw a sadder 
or wearier face in all my life than Lincoln's ! " 

He had terrible problems ahead, and he knew it. 
His emancipation proclamation in 1863 was a war 
measure. His letter to Greeley in 1862, said: "If 
there be those who would not save the Union unless 
they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree 
with them. If I could preserve the Union without 
freeing any slaves, I would do it; if I could preserve 
the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. . . . 
What I do about the coloured race, I do because I think 
it helps to save the Union." 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 375 

To a committee of negroes waiting on him in the 
White House, August 14, 1862, Mr. Lincoln named 
colonisation as the one remedy for the race trouble, 
proposing Government aid out of an appropriation 
which Congress had voted him. He said: "White 
men in this country are cutting each other's throats 
about you. But for your race among us, there would 
be no war, although many men on either side do not 
care for you one way or the other. . . . Your race 
suffers from living among us, ours from your presence." 
He applied $25,000 to the venture, but it failed; New 
Grenada objected to negro colonisation. 

Two months before his visit to Richmond, some offi- 
cial (Colonel Kaye, as I remember) was describing to 
him the extravagancies of South Carolina negroes when 
Sherman's army announced freedom to them, and Mr. 
Lincoln walked his floor, pale and distressed, saying: 
*' It is a momentous thing — this liberation of the negro 
race." 

He left a paper in his own handwriting with Judge 
Campbell, setting forth the terms upon which any 
seceded State could be restored to the Union; these 
were, unqualified submission, withdrawal of soldiers 
from the field, and acceptance of his position on the 
slavery question, as defined in his proclamations. The 
movement gained ground. A committee in Petersburg, 
headed by Anthony Keiley, asked permits to come to 
Richmond that they might cooperate with the committee 
there. 

" Unconditional surrender," some commented. " Mr. 
Lincoln Is not disposed to humiliate us unnecessarily," 
was the reassurance. "He promised Judge Campbell 
that irritating exactions and oaths against their con- 
sciences are not to be imposed upon our people; they 
are to be encouraged, not coerced, into taking vows of 



38 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

allegiance to the United States Government; Lincoln's 
idea is to make allegiance a coveted privilege ; there are 
to be no confiscations; amnesty to include our officers, 
civil and military, is to be granted — that is, the power 
of pardon resting with the President, he pledges him- 
self to liberal use of it. Lincoln is long-headed and 
kind-hearted. He knows the best thing all around is a 
real peace. He wishes to restore confidence in and affec- 
tion for the Union. That is plain. He said: ' I would 
gladly pardon Jeff Davis himself if he would ask it.' " 

I have heard one very pretty story about Mr. Lin- 
coln's visit to Richmond. General Pickett, of the 
famous charge at Gettysburg, had been well known in 
early life to Mr. Lincoln when Mr. Lincoln and Mr. 
Johnson, General Pickett's uncle, were law partners in 
Illinois. Mr. Lincoln had taken warm interest in 
young George Pickett as a cadet at West Point, and 
had written him kindly, jovial letters of advice. Dur- 
ing that hurried sojourn in Richmond, Abraham Lincoln 
took time for looking up Mr. Johnson. His carriage 
and armed retinue drew up in front of the old Pickett 
mansion. The General's beautiful young wife, trem- 
bling with alarm, heard a strange voice asking first for 
Mr. Johnson and then about General Pickett, and 
finally: "Is General Pickett's wife here?" She came 
forward, her baby in her arms. " I am General Pick- 
ett's wife." " Madam, I am George's old friend, 
Abraham Lincoln." "The President of the United 
States ! " " No," with a kindly, half-quizzical smile, 
"only Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend. And 
this is George's baby?" Abraham Lincoln bent his 
kindly, half-sad, half-smiling glance upon the child. 
Baby George stretched out his hands; Lincoln took him, 
and the little one, in the pretty fashion babies have, 
opened his mouth and kissed the President. 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 39 

"Tell your father," said Lincoln, "that I will grant 
him a special amnesty — if he wants it — for the sake of 
your mother's bright eyes and your good manners." 
A short while after that — when Lincoln was dead — that 
mother was flying, terror-stricken, with her baby to 
Canada, where General Pickett, in fear of his life, had 
taken refuge. 

Mr. Lincoln left instructions for General Weitzel 
to issue passes to the legislators and State officials who 
were to come to Richmond for the purpose of restoring 
Virginia to the Union. The "Whig" had sympathetic 
articles on " Reconstruction," and announced in due 
order the meeting of citizens called "to consider Presi- 
dent Lincoln's proposition for reassembling the Legis- 
lature to take Virginia back into the Union." It printed 
the formal call for reassembling, signed by the commit- 
tee and many citizens, and countersigned by General 
Weitzel; handbills so signed were printed for distri- 
bution. 

General Shepley, whose cordial acquiescence in the 
conciliation plan had been pronounced, said in after 
years that he suffered serious misgivings. When Gen- 
eral Weitzel directed him to issue the passes for the 
returning legislators, he inquired: "Have you the 
President's written order for this?" "No. Why?'* 
" For your own security you should have it. General, 
When the President reaches Washington and the Cabi- 
net are informed of what has been done and what is 
contemplated, this order will be rescinded, and the Cabi- 
net will deny that it has ever been issued." 

"I have the President's commands. I am a soldier 
and obey orders." 

" Right, General. Command me and I obey." 

Mr. Lincoln's written order reiterating oral instruc- 
tions came, however. 



40 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Admiral Porter, according to his own account, took 
President Lincoln to task for his concessions, and told 
him in so many words that he was acting outside of his 
rights; Richmond, being under military rule, was sub- 
ject to General Grant's jurisdiction. The Admiral has 
claimed the distinction of working a change in the Presi- 
dent's mind and of recovering immediately the obnox- 
ious order from Weitzel, killing, or trying to kill, a 
horse or so in the undertaking. He characterised the 
efforts of Judges Campbell and Thomas to serve their 
country and avert more bloodshed as " a clever dodge 
to soothe the wounded feelings of the people of the 
South." The Admiral adds: "But what a howl it 
would have raised in the North ! " 

Admiral Porter says the lectured President exclaimed : 
"Well, I came near knocking all the fat in the fire, 
didn't I? Let us go. I seem to be putting my foot 
into it here all the time. Bless my soul ! how Seward 
would have preached if he had heard me give Campbell 
permission to call the Legislature ! Seward is an encyclo- 
pedia of international law, and laughs at my horse sense 
on which I pride myself. Admiral, if I were you, I would 
not repeat that joke yet awhile. People might laugh 
at you for knowing so much more than the President." 

He was acting, he said, in conjunction with military 
authorities. General Weitzel was acting under General 
Grant's instructions. The conciliatory plan was being 
followed In Petersburg, where General Grant himself 
had led the formal entry. 

" General Weitzel warmly approves the plan." 

"He and Campbell are personal friends," the Ad- 
miral remarked significantly. 

Whatever became of those horses driven out by Ad- 
miral Porter's Instructions to be killed, if need be, in 
the effort to recover that order. Is a conundrum. Ac- 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 41 

cording to Admiral Porter the order had been written 
and given to General Weitzel while Mr. Lincoln was 
in the city. According to Judge Campbell and General 
Shepley, and the original now on file in Washington, it 
was written from City Point. 

Dated, " Headquarters Department of Virginia, Rich- 
mond, April 13, 1865," this appeared in the "Whig" 
on the last afternoon of Mr. Lincoln's life: 

" Permission for the reassembling of the gentlemen 
recently acting as the Legislature Is rescinded. Should 
any of the gentlemen come to the city under the notice 
of reassembling already published, they will be fur- 
nished passports to return to their homes. Any of the 
persons named In the call signed by J. A. Campbell 
and others, who are found in the city twelve hours after 
the publication of this notice will be subject to arrest, 
unless they are residents. (Signed) E. O. C. Ord, 
General Commanding the Department." 

General Weitzel was removed. Upon him was 
thrown the blame of the President's "blunder." He 
was charged with the crime of pity and sympathy for 
"rebels" and "traitors." When Lincoln was dead, a 
high official In Washington said: " No man more than 
Mr. Lincoln condemned the course General Weitzel and 
his officers pursued in Richmond." 

In more ways than one General Weitzel had done 
that which was not pleasing In the sight of Mr. Stanton. 
Assistant Secretary of War Dana had let Stanton know 
post-haste that General Weitzel was distributing " vict- 
uals" to "rebels." Stanton wired to know of General 
Weitzel If he was "acting under authority In giving 
food supplies to the people of Richmond, and if so, 
whose ? " General Weitzel answered, " Major-General 
Ord's orders approved by General Grant." 

Mr. Dana wrote Mr. Stanton, "Weitzel is to pay for 



42 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

rations by selling captured property." General Weitzel 
apologised for magnanimity by explaining that the 
instructions of General Ord, his superior, were "to sell 
all the tobacco I find here and feed those in distress. 
A great many persons, black and white, are on the point 
of starvation, and I have relieved the most pressing 
wants by the issue of a few abandoned rebel stores and 
some damaged stores of my own." "All receivers of 
rations must take the oath," Mr. Stanton wrote back. 

In Northern magazines left by Federal soldiers visit- 
ing negroes in Matoaca's yard, black Cato saw carica- 
tures of Southern ladies mixing in with negroes and 
white roughs and toughs, begging food at Yankee bu- 
reaus. "Miss Mato'ca," he plead earnestly, " don' go 
whar dem folks is no mo'. It will disgrace de fam'ly." 
She had put pride and conscience in her pocket, drawn 
rations and brought home her pork and codfish. 

Revocation of permission for the reassembling of the 
Virginia Legislature was one of Mr. Lincoln's last, if 
not his last, act in the War Department. Stanton gave 
him no peace till it was written; he handed the paper 
to Mr. Stanton, saying: "There! I think that will suit 
you ! " "No," said the Iron Chancellor of the Union. 
" It is not strong enough. It merely revokes your per- 
mission for the assembling of the rebel legislators. 
Some of these men will come to Richmond — are doubt- 
less there now — in response to the call. You should 
prohibit the meeting." Which was done. Hence, the 
prohibitory order in the "Whig." 

Mr. Lincoln wrote, April 14, to General Van Alen, 
of New York: "Thank you for the assurance you give 
me that I shall be supported by conservative men like 
yourself in the efforts I may use to restore the Union, 
so as to make it, to use your own language, a Union of 
hearts as well as of hands." General Van Alen had 



THE COMING OF LINCOLN 43 

warned him against exposing himself In the South as 
he had done by visiting Richmond; and for this Mr. 
Lincoln thanked him briefly without admitting that 
there had been any peril. Laconically, he had thanked 
Stanton for concern expressed In a dispatch warning 
him to be careful about visiting Petersburg, adding, " I 
have already been there." 

When serenaded the Tuesday before his death, he 
said, in speaking of the bringing of the Southern States 
into practical relations with the Union: "I believe It 
is not only possible, but easier to do this, without decld- 
fng, or even considering, whether these States have ever 
been out of the Union. Finding themselves safely at 
home, It would be utterly immaterial whether they had 
ever been abroad." 

His last joke — the story-tellers say it was his last — 
was about " Dixie." General Lee's surrender had been 
announced; Washington was ablaze with excitement. 
Delirious multitudes surged to the White House, calling 
the President out for a speech. It was a moment for 
easy betrayal Into words that might widen the breach 
between sections. He said in his quaint way that he 
had no speech ready, and concluded humorously: "I 
have always thought ' Dixie ' one of the best tunes I 
ever heard. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly 
captured It. I presented the question to the Attorney- 
General and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful 
prize, *I ask the band to give us a good turn upon it." 
In that little speech, he claimed of the South by right 
of conquest a song — and nothing more. 



THE LAST CAPITAL 



CHAPTER V 

The Last Capital of the Confederacy 

From Richmond, Mr. Davis went to Danville. 
Major Sutherlin, the Commandant, met him at the sta- 
tion and carried him and members of his Cabinet to 
the Sutherlin Mansion, which then became practically 
the Southern Capitol. 

The President was busy night and day, examining and 
improving defenses and fortifications and planning the 
junction of Lee's and Johnston's forces. Men were 
seeking his presence at all hours; couriers coming and 
going; telegrams flying hither and thither. 

" In the midst of turmoil, and with such fearful cares 
and responsibilities upon him, he did not forget to be 
thoughtful and considerate of others," I have heard 
Mrs. Sutherlin say. "He was concerned for me. *I 
cannot have you troubled with so many interruptions,' 
he said. ' We must seek other quarters.' But I would 
not have it so. ' All that you call a burden is my privi- 
lege,' I replied. ' I will not let you go.' He had other 
quarters secured for the Departments, but he and mem- 
bers of his Cabinet remained my guests." 

In that hospitable home the table was set all the 
time for the coming and the going. The board was 
spread with the best the bountiful host and hostess could 
supply. Mrs. Sutherlin brought out all her treasured 
reserves of pickles, sweetmeats and preserves. This 
might be her last opportunity for serving the Confed- 
eracy and its Chieftain. 

The Sutherlins knew that the President's residence 

47 



48 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

in their home was a perilous honour. In case the Con- 
federacy failed — and hope to the contrary could not 
run high — their dwelling would be a marked spot. 

Major Sutherlin had been a strong Union man. 
Mrs. Sutherlin has told me how her husband voted 
against secession in the first convention to which he was 
a delegate, and for it in the second, with deep regret. 
"I saw in that convention," he told his wife, "strong, 
reserved men, men of years and dignity, sign the Seces- 
sion Ordinance while tears coursed down their cheeks." 

It is just to rehearse such things of men who were 
called " traitors " and " rebels." It is just to remember 
how Jefferson Davis tried to prevent secession. His 
letters to New England societies, his speeches in New 
England and in Congress, testified to his deep and fer- 
vent desire for the " preservation of the bond between 
the States," the " love of the Union in our hearts," and 
" the landmarks of our fathers." 

But he believed In States' Rights as fervently as 
In Union of States; he believed absorption of State 
sovereignty Into central sovereignty a violation of the 
Constitution, Long before secession (1847) he de- 
clined appointment of Brigadier General of Mississippi 
Volunteers from President Polk on the ground that 
the central government was not vested by the Consti- 
tution with power to commission officers of State Mili- 
tia, the State having this authority.* 

Americans should not forget that this man entered 
the service of the Union when a lad; that his father and 
uncles fought In the Revolution, his brothers In the 
War of 18 12. West Point holds trophies of his skill 



* In 1793, 1803, 1812-14, 1844-50, Northern States threatened to 
secede. Of Massachusetts' last movement Mr. Davis said in Con- 
gress: "It is her right." Nov. i, Dec. 17, Feb. 23, 1860-61, the 
" New York Tribune " said : " We insist on letting the Cotton States 
go in peace . . . the right to secede exists." 







ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, RICHMOND, VA. 

It was to this church that the message was brought from Lee to Davis 

announcing the necessity of evacuating Richmond. 



THE LAST CAPITAL 49 

as a commander and of his superb gallantry on the 
fields of Mexico. That splendid charge without bayo- 
nets through the streets of Monterey almost to the 
Plaza, and the charge at Buena Vista, are themes to 
make American blood tingle ! Their leader was not a 
man to believe in defeat as long as a ray of hope was 
left. 

As Secretary of War of the United States, Mr. Davis 
strengthened the power that crushed the South ; in every 
branch of the War Department, his genius and faithful 
and untiring service wrought improvements. In the 
days of giants like Webster, Clay and Calhoun, the bril- 
liant Mississippian drew upon himself many eyes and 
his course had been watched as that of a bright particu- 
lar star of great promise. The candidacy of Vice- 
President of the United States had been tendered him — • 
he had been mentioned for the Presidency, and it is no 
wild speculation that had he abjured his convictions on 
the States' Rights' issue, he would have found him- 
self some day in the seat Lincoln occupied. He has 
been accused of overweening ambition. The charge is 
not well sustained. He did not desire the Presidency of 
the Confederacy. 

In 1 86 1, "Harper's Weekly" said: "Personally, 
Senator Davis is the Bayard of Congress, sans petir et 
sans reproche; a high-minded gentleman; a devoted 
father; a true friend . . . emphatially one of 
those born to command, and is doubtless destined to 
occupy a high position either in the Southern Confed- 
eracy or in the United States." He was " gloriously 
linked with the United States service in the field, the 
forum, and the Cabinet." The Southern Confederacy 
failed, and he was " Davis, the Arch-Traitor." 

"He wrote his last proclamation on this table," said 
Mrs. Sutherlin to me, her hand on the Egyptian marble 



50 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

where the President's fingers had traversed that final 
paper of state which expressed a confidence he could 
not have felt, but that he must have believed it duty to 
afHrm. He had tried to make peace and had failed. 
Our armies were still in the field. A bold front on his 
part, if it could do no more, might enable our generals 
to secure better terms than unconditional surrender. 
At least, no worse could be tendered. That final mes- 
sage was the utterance of a brave soul, itself disheart- 
ened, trying to put heart into others. All along the 
way to Danville, people had flocked to the railroad to 
hear him, and he had spoken as he wrote. 

He was an ill man, unutterably weary. He had borne 
the burden and heat of the day for four terrible years; 
he had been a target for the criticism even of his own 
people ; all failures were laid at the door of this one man 
who was trying to run a government and conduct a war 
on an empty treasury. It must have cost him some- 
thing to keep up an unwavering front. 

Lieutenant Wise, son of General Henry A. Wise, 
brought news that Lee's surrender was imminent; on 
learning of it, he had taken to horse and run through 
the enemy's cavalry, to warn the President. Starva- 
tion had brought Lee's army to bay. Men were living 
off grains of parched corn carried in their pockets. 
Sheridan's cavalry had captured the wagon-trains of 
food supplies. Also, the President was called from 
the dinner-table to see an old citizen, who repeated a 
story from some one who had seen General Lee in Gen- 
eral Grant's tent. Other information followed. 

Scouts came to say that Federal cavalry were advanc- 
ing. There was danger that the President's way to the 
South might be cut off, danger that he might be cap- 
tured. All were in haste to get him away; a special 
train was made up. The Sutherlin carriage drove hur- 



THE LAST CAPITAL 51 

riedly to the Mansion, the President and Major Suth- 
erlin got out and entered the house. 

" I am to bid you goodbye," said he to Mrs, Suth- 
erhn, " and to thank you for your kindness. I shall 
ever remember it." 

"O, but it is a privilege — an honour — something for 
me to remember I " 

As explanations were being made and preparations 
hastened, the President said : " Speak low, lest we ex- 
cite Mr. Memminger or distress his wife more than 
need be." 

Mr. Memminger, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, was 
upstairs, very ill; the physician had just left after giving 
him a hypodermic of morphine and ordering absolute 
quiet. Friends decided that the sick man and his wife 
ran less risk in remaining than in following the Presi- 
dent. But Mrs. Memminger, leaning over the balus- 
trade, heard; and she and her husband came down and 
went after the President in a rude farm wagon, the only 
vehicle Mrs. Sutherlin could impress. 

" Mr. Davis kept up a cheerful countenance the whole 
time he was here," his hostess has borne witness, "but 
I was sure that deep down in his heart he was not cheer- 
ful — I felt it. He was brave, self-possessed. Only 
once did he betray evidence of break-down. When he 
was leaving, I knew that he had no money in his pockets 
except Confederate notes — and these would buy next 
to nothing. We had some gold, and I offered it to him, 
pressed it upon him. He shook his head. Tears came 
into his eyes. 'No, no, my child,' he said, 'you and 
your husband are much younger than I am. You will 
need it. I will not.' Mr. Davis did not expect to live 
long. He was sure he would be killed." 

When General Sherman was accused by Stanton of 
treachery because he was not hotter on the scent of " Jeff 



52 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Davis and his $13,000,000 treasure-trains," he retorted 
indignantly that those "treasure-trains dwindled down 
to the contents of a hand-valise" found on Mr. Davis 
when captured. 

Mrs. Sutherlin pointed out to me the President's 
sleeping-room, an upper chamber overlooking the lawn 
with its noble trees, in whose branches mocking-birds 
lodge. At his first breakfast with her, Mr. Davis told 
Mrs. Sutherlin how the songs of the mocking-birds re- 
freshed him. 

Another thing that cheered him in Danville was the 
enthusiasm of the school-girls of the Southern Female 
College ; when these young ladies, in their best homespun 
gowns, went out on dress parade and beheld Mr. Davis 
riding by in Major Sutherlin's carriage, they drew them- 
selves up in line, waved handkerchiefs and cheered to 
their hearts' content; he gave them his best bow and 
smile — that dignified, grave bow and smile his people 
knew so well. I have always been thankful for that 
bright bit in Mr. Davis' life during those supremel> 
trying hours — for the songs of the mocking-birds and 
the cheers of the school-girls. 

Some weeks after his departure. General Wright, 
U. S. A., in formal possession of Danville, pitched his 
tent opposite the Sutherlin Mansion. The next Mrs. 
Sutherlin knew, an orderly was bearing in a large 
pitcher, another a big bowl, and between them General 
Wright's compliments and his hopes "that you may 
find this lemonade refreshing" and "be pleased to 
accept this white cut sugar, as the drink may not be 
sweet enough for your taste." Another day, an orderly 
appeared with a large, juicy steak; every short while 
orderlies came making presentation. 

The Sutherllns accepted and returned courtesies. 
"We had as well be polite," said Major Sutherlin. 




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THE LAST CAPITAL 53 

"There's no use quarrelling with them because they 
have whipped us." When they came to him for official 
information as to where Confederate Government ice- 
houses were, he responded: "It is not my busi- 
ness to give you this information. Your commanders 
can find out for themselves. Meanwhile, General 
Wright and his staff are welcome to ice out of my own 
ice-houses." They found out for themselves with little 
delay. 

On the verandah where the Confederate President 
and his advisers had lately gathered, Federal officers 
sat at ease, smoking sociably and cohversing with the 
master of the house. If a meal-hour arrived. Major 
Sutherlin would say: "Gentlemen, will you join us?" 
Usually, invitation was accepted. Social recognition 
was the one thing the Northern soldier could not con- 
quer in the South by main strength and awkwardness; 
he coveted and appreciated it. 

All were listening for tidings of Johnston's surrender. 
At last the news came. Around the Sutherlin board 
one day sat six guests : three Federal officers in fine cloth 
and gold lace, three Confederate officers in shabby rai- 
ment. A noise as of a terrific explosion shook the 
house. "Throw up the windows!" said the mistress 
to her servants, an ordinary command when shattering 
of glass by concussion was an every-day occurrence in 
artillery-ridden Dixie. Save for this sentence, there was 
complete silence at the table. The officers laid down 
their knives and forks and said not one word. They 
knew that those guns announced the surrender of John- 
ston's army. I suppose it was the salute of 200 — the 
same that had been ordered at every post as glorification 
of Lee's surrender. 

Some time after this, Mayor Walker came to Major 
Sutherlin with a telegram announcing that General 



54 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Meade and his staff would stop In Danville over night. 
They had been or were going to South Carolina on a 
mission of relief to whites who were in peril from 
blacks. At the Mayor's request, Major Sutherlin met 
the officers at the train. 

*' General," was his cordial greeting to General 
Meade, a splendid-looking officer at that day, *' I am 
here to claim you and your staff as my guests." General 
Meade, accepting, said: "I will have my ambulance 
bring us up." " O, no, General ! You come in my car- 
riage, if you will do me that honour. It is waiting." 

At breakfast, General Meade said to his hostess: 
*' Madam, Southern hospitality has not been praised too 
highly. I trust some day to see you North that I may 
have opportunity to match your courtesy." Another 
time: "Madam, I trust that no misfortune will come 
to you because of the troubled state of our country. 
But if there should, I may be of service to you. You 
have only to command me, and I ask it as a favour that 
you will." 

A Northern friend had warned her: "Mrs. Suth- 
erlin, I fear your property may be confiscated because 
of the uses to which it has been put in the service of 
the Confederate Government. You should take advan- 
tage of General Wright's good will and of the good 
will of other Federal officers towards Major Sutherlin 
to make your title secure." Did she ask General Meade 
now to save her home to her? 

" General, hospitality is our privilege and you owe us 
no debt. But I beg you to extend the kindly feelings 
you express toward Major Sutherlin and myself to one 
who lately sat where you now sit, at my right hand. 
I would ask you to use your Influence to secure more 
gracious hospitality to our President who Is In prison." 

Dead silence. One could have heard a pin fall. 



THE LAST CAPITAL S5; 

Wholesale confiscation of Greensboro was threatened 
because of Mr. Davis' stop there. Major Sutherlin 
strove with tact and diligence to prevent it. He lost no 
opportunity to cultivate kindly relations with Northern- 
ers of influence, and to inaugurate a reign of good-will 
generally. Receiving a telegram saying that Colonel 
Buford, a Northern oflicer, and his party, would pass 
through Danville, the Major went to his wife and said: 
" I am going to invite those Yankees here. I want you 
to get up the finest dinner you can for them." Feeling 
was high and sore ; she did not smile. The day of their 
arrival he appeared in trepidation. " I have another 
telegram," he said. "To my surprise, there are ladies 
in the party." 

This was too much for the honest "rebel" soul of 
her. Men she could avoid seeing except at table; but 
with ladies for her guests, more olive branches must be 
exchanged than genuine feeling between late enemies 
could possibly warrant. But her guests found her a 
perfect hostess, grave, sincere, hospitable. 

There was a young married pair. When her faith- 
ful coloured man went up to their rooms to render 
service, they were afraid of him, were careful he 
should not enter, seemed to fear that of himself or as 
the Instrument of his former owners he might do them 
injury. 

Such queer, contradictory Ideas Yankees had of us 
and our black people. A Northern girl visiting the 
niece of Alexander H. Stephens at a plantation where 
there were many negroes, asked : " Where are the blood- 
hounds?" "The blood-hounds! We haven't any." 
"How do you manage the negroes without them? I 
thought all Southerners kept blood-hounds — that only 
blood-hounds could keep negroes from running away." 
" I never saw a blood-hound In my life," Miss Stephens 



156 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

replied. *' I don't know what one Is like. None of our 
friends keep blood-hounds." 

But to the Sutherlin Mansion. The bride asked: 
"Mrs. Sutherlin, what room did Mr. Davis occupy?" 

"That in which you sleep." 

The bride was silent. Then : " It Is a pleasant room. 
The mocking-birds are singing when we wake in the 
morning. Sometimes, I hear them in the night." 

A shadow fell on the hostess' face. The words re- 
called the thought of Mr. Davis, now shut out from the 
sight of the sky and the voice of the birds. 

It has been said of this or that place at which Mr. 
Davis, moving southward from Danville, stopped, that 
it was the "Last Capital of the Confederacy." He 
held a Cabinet meeting In Colonel Wood's house In 
Greensboro ; was In Charlotte several days ; held a Cabi- 
net meeting or council of war In the Armlstead Burt 
House, Abbeville, S. C. ; and In the Old Bank, Wash- 
ington, Ga. He said in council at Abbeville : " I will 
listen to no proposition for my safety. I appeal to you 
for our country." 

He stopped one night at Salisbury, with the Epis- 
copal minister, whose little daughter ran in while all 
were at the breakfast-table, and standing between her 
father and Mr. Davis, cried out In childish terror and 
distress: "O, Papa, old Lincoln's coming and is going 
to kill us all ! " President Davis laid down his knife 
and fork, lifted her face, and said reassuringly: "No, 
no, my little lady ! Mr. Lincoln Is not such a bad man, 
and I am sure he would not harm a little girl like you." 

While the President was at Charlotte, there was an- 
other memorable peace effort, Sherman and Johnston 
arranging terms. Johnston's overture was dated April 
13 ; Sherman's reply, " I am fully empowered to arrange 
with you any terms for the suspension of hostilities," 



THE LAST CAPITAL 57 

April 14, the last day of Lincoln's life. Mr. Davis 
wrote General Johnston: "Your course is approved." 
Mr. Stanton nearly branded Sherman as a traitor. 
Sherman gave Johnston notice that he must renew hos- 
tilities. Mr. Davis left Charlotte, thinking war still on. 

In Washington, Ga., the first town in America named 
for the Father of his Country, the Confederate Govern- 
ment breathed its last. A quiet, picturesque, little place, 
out of track of the armies, it was suddenly shaken with 
excitement, when Mr. Davis, attended by his personal 
staff, several distinguished officers, besides a small cav- 
alry escort, rode in. 

Mrs. Davis had left the day before. As long as her 
wagons and ambulances had stood In front of Dr. Fick- 
len's house, the people of Washington were calling upon 
her; first among them. General Toombs with cordial 
offers of aid and hospitality, though there had been 
sharp differences between him and Mr. Davis. Here, 
it may be said, she held her last reception as the First 
Lady of the Confederacy. She had expected to meet 
her husband, and went away no doubt heavy of heart — 
herself, her baby, Winnie, and her other little children, 
and her sister, Maggie Howell, again to be wanderers 
of woods and waysides. With them went a devoted 
little band of Confederate soldiers, their volunteer es- 
cort. Burton Harrison, the President's secretary, and one 
or two negro servants whose devotion never faltered. 

On a lovely May morning, people sat on the Bank 
piazza asking anxiously: " Where can Mr. Davis be? " 
"Is he already captured and killed?" Dr. Robertson, 
an officer of the bank, and his family lived in the build- 
ing. With them was General Elzey, on parole, his wife 
and son. Kate Joyner Robertson and her brother, 
Willie, sixteen years old and a Confederate Veteran, 
were on the piazza ; also David Faver, seventeen, and a 



f58 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Confederate Veteran; these boys were members of the 
Georgia Military Institute Battalion. A description of 
this battalion was recently given me by Mr. Faver: 

"There were as many negroes — body-servants — In 
our ranks as boys when we started out, spick and span. 
We saw actual service; guarded the powder magazines 
at Augusta and Savannah, fought the Yankees at Chat- 
tanooga, stood in front of Sherman In South Carolina. 
Young Scott Todd lost his arm — Dr. Todd, of Atlanta, 
carries around that empty sleeve today. I bore hand- 
some Tom Hamilton off the field when he was shot. I 
was just fifteen when I went in; some were younger. 
Henry Cabaniss and Julius Brown were the smallest 
boys In the army. We were youngsters who ought to 
have beeo In knee pants, but the G. M. I. never quailed 
before guns or duty! I remember (laughing) when 
we met the Cits in Charleston. They were all spick 
and span — ' Citadel Cadets ' blazoned all over them and 
their belongings. We were all tattered and torn, noth- 
ing of the G. M. I. left about us ! Rags was the stamp 
of the regular, and we ' guyed ' the Cits. We had seen 
fighting and they had not." Sixteen-year-old Lint 
Stephens, Vice-President Stephens' nephew, was of this 
juvenile warrior band. On the occasion of his sudden 
appearance at home to prepare for war, Mr. Stephens 
asked what he had quit school for. " To fight for the 
fair sex," he replied. And to this day some people 
think we fought to keep negroes In slavery ! 

A "Georgia Cracker" rode In from the Abbeville 
road, drew rein before the bank, and saluting, drawled: 
"Is you'uns seen any soldiers roun' here?" There 
were Confederate uniforms on the piazza. "What 
kind of soldiers?" he was asked, and General Elzey 
said: "My friend, you have betrayed yourself by that 
military salute. You are no Ignorant countryman, but 



THE LAST CAPITAL 59 

a soldier yourself." The horseman spurred close to the 
piazza. " Are there any Yankees in town? " " None. 
Tell us, do you know anything about President Davis? " 
After a little more questioning, the horseman said: 
" President Davis is not an hour's ride from here." 

The piazza was all excitement. "Where should the 
President be entertained?" Ordinarily, General 
Toombs was municipal host. Everybody is familiar 
with the reply he made to a committee consulting him 
about erecting a hotel In Washington: "We have no 
need of one. When respectable people come here, they 
can stop at my house. If they are not respectable, we 
do not want them at all." Everybody knew that all he 
had was at the President's command. But — there had 
been the unpleasantness. " Bring the President here," 
Mrs. Robertson said promptly. Dr. Robertson added : 
"As a government building, this is the proper place." 
Willie Robertson, commissioned to convey the invitation, 
rode off with the courier, the envy of every other G. M. 
I. In town. The little " Bats " were ready to go to war 
again. 

Soon, the President dismounted in front of the bank. 
Mrs. Faver (Kate Joyner Robertson that was) says: 
" He wore a full suit of Confederate gray. He looked 
worn, sad, and troubled; said he was tired and went at 
once to his room. My mother sent a cup of tea to him. 
That afternoon, or next morning, all the people came 
to see him. He stood in the parlor door, they filed In, 
shook hands, and passed out." So, in Washington, he 
held his last Presidential reception. 

"To hear Mr. Davis," Mr. Faver reports, "you 
would have no idea that he considered the cause lost. 
He spoke hopefully of our yet unsurrendered forces. 
Secretary Reagan, General St. John and Major Raphael 
J. Moses were General Toombs' guests. That night 



6o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

after supper, they walked to the bank; my father's house 
was opposite General Toombs.' I walked behind them. 
I think they held what has been called the Last Cabinet 
Meeting that night." 

Mr. Trenholm, too ill to travel, had stopped at Char- 
lotte; Secretary of State Benjamin had left Mr. Davis 
that morning; at Washington, Secretary of the Navy 
Mallory went; Secretary of War Breckinridge, whom 
he was expecting, did not come on time. News reached 
him of Johnston's surrender. General Upton had 
passed almost through Washington on his way to re- 
ceive the surrender of Augusta. The President per- 
ceived his escort's peril. To their commander, Cap- 
tain Campbell, he said: "Your company is too large 
to pass without observation, and not strong enough to 
fight. See if there are ten men in It who will volunteer 
to go with me without question wherever I choose?" 
Captain Campbell reported : " All volunteer to go with 
lYour Excellency." 

He was deeply touched, but would not suffer them to 
take the risk. With ten men selected by Captain Camp- 
bell, and his personal staff, he rode out of Washington, 
the people weeping as they watched him go. When he 
was mounting, Rev. Dr. Tupper, the Baptist minister, 
approached him, uttering words of comfort and encour- 
agement. " ' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him,' " the President responded gently. He had made 
disposition of m.ost of his personal belongings, giving 
the china In his mess-chest to Colonel Weems, the chest 
to General McLaws; to Mrs. Robertson his Ink-stand, 
table, dressing-case, some tea, coffee, and brandy, por- 
tions of which she still retained when last I heard; the 
dressing-case and ink-stand she had sent to the Confed- 
erate Museum at Richmond. 

His last official order was written at the old bank; it 



THE LAST CAPITAL 6i 

appointed Captain H. M. Clarke Acting Treasurer of 
the Confederacy. The last Treasury Department was 
an old appletree at General Basil Duke's camp a short 
distance from Washington, under whose shade Captain 
Clarke sat while he paid out small amounts in coin to the 
soldiers. General Duke's Kentuckians, Mr. Davis' 
faithful last guard, were the remnant of John H. Mor- 
gan's famous command. 

Soon after his departure, the treasure-train, or a sec- 
tion of it, reached Washington. Boxes of bullion were 
stored in the bank; Mrs. Faver remembers that officers 
laughingly told her and her sisters if they would lift 
one of the boxes, they might have all the gold in it; and 
they tried, but O, how heavy it was ! She recalls some 
movement on the part of her parents to convey the treas- 
ure to Abbeville, but this was not practicable. 

" It was a fitting conclusion of the young Govern- 
ment . . . that it marked its last act of authority 
by a thoughtful loyalty to the comfort of its penniless 
and starved defenders," says Avery's " History of 
Georgia," commenting on the fact that under that act 
Major Raphael J. Moses conveyed to Augusta bullion 
exceeding $35,000, delivering it to General Molineux 
on the promise that it would be used to purchase food 
and other necessaries for needy Confederate soldiers 
and our sick in hospitals. 

Soon after the treasure-train left Washington, some 
one galloped back and flung into General Toombs' yard 
a bag containing $5,000 in gold. The General was in 
straits for money with which to flee the country, but 
swore with a great round oath he would use no penny 
of this mysterious gift, and turned it over to Major 
Moses, who committed it to Captain Abrahams, Federal 
Commissary, for use in relieving needy Confederates 
home-returning. At Greensboro, General Joseph E. 



62 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Johnston had taken $39,000 for his soldiers. There 
have been many stories about this treasure-train.* It 
carried no great fortune, and Mr. Davis was no bene- 
ficiary. He meant to use it in carrying on the war. 

The point has been made that Mr. Davis should have 
remained in Richmond and made terms. Since gov- 
ernments were governments, no ruler has followed the 
course that would have been. He thought it traitorous 
to surrender the whole Confederacy because the Capital 
was lost. Even after Lee's surrender the Confederacy 
had armies in the field, and a vast domain farther south 
where commanders believed positions could be held. He 
believed it would be cowardly to fail them, and that it 
was his duty to move the seat of government from place 
to place through the Confederacy as long as there was 
an army to sustain the government. To find precedent, 
one has but to turn to European history. In England, 
the rightful prince has been chased all over the country 
and even across the channel. Mr. Davis believed in 
the righteousness of his cause ; and that it was his duty 
to stand for it to the death. 

His determination, on leaving Washington, was to 
reach the armies of Maury, Forrest, and Taylor in Ala- 
bama and Mississippi; if necessary, withdraw these 
across the Mississippi, uniting with KIrby-Smlth and 
Magruder In Texas, a section "rich in supplies and 
lacking in railroads and waterways." There the con- 
centrated forces might hold their own until the enemy 
" should. In accordance with his repeated declaration, 
have agreed, on the basis of a return to the Union, to 
acknowledge the Constitutional rights of the States, and 
by a convention, or quasl-treaty, to guarantee security of 



* For full statement, see Captain H. M. Clarke's paper in Southern 
Hist. Society Paper, Vol. 9, pp. 542-556, and Paymaster John F. 
Whieless' report, Vol. 10, 137. 




GENERAL AND MRS. JOHN H. MORGAN 



THE LAST CAPITAL 63 

person and property." What Judge Campbell thought 
could be secured by submission, Mr. Davis was confident 
could only be attained by keeping in the field a military 
force whose demands the North, weary of war, might 
respect. What he sought to do for his people in one 
way, Judge Campbell sought to do in another. Both 
failed. 

While Mr. Davis was riding out of Washington, 
Generals Taylor and Maury, near Meridian, Missis- 
sippi, were arranging with General Canby, U. S. A., for 
the surrender of all the Confederate forces in Alabama 
and Mississippi. These generals were dining together 
and the bands were playing "Hail Columbia" and 
" Dixie." 



THE COUNSEL OF LEE 



CHAPTER VI 

The Counsel of Lee 

"A few days after the occupation, some drunken sol- 
diers were heard talking in the back yard to our negroes, 
and it was gathered from what they said that the Fed- 
erals were afraid General Lee had formed an ambuscade 
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the city, and that 
he might fall upon them at any time and deliver Rich- 
mond out of their hands. How our people wished it 
might be so ! " Matoaca relates. " Do not buoy your- 
self up with that hope, my dear," said her monitor. 
*' There's no hope save in the mercy of our conquerors. 
General Lee is a great soldier, an extraordinary tactician, 
but he cannot do the impossible. Our army cannot go 
on fighting forever without money and without food." 

When our beloved general came home, the doctrine 
he taught by precept and example was that of peace. 
"The stainless sword of Lee" had been laid down in 
good faith. We had fought a good fight, we had failed, 
we must accept the inevitable, we must not lose heart, 
we must work for our country's welfare in peace. The 
very first heard of him in his modest, unheralded home- 
returning, he was teaching this. / 

Young William McCaw, his courier for four years, 
rode in with him; and General Lee, before going to his 
own home, delivered William, safe and sound, to his 
father. Dr. McCaw came out when they stopped in 
front of his door, and General Lee said : 

" Here, Doctor, is your boy. I've brought him home 
to you." 

67 



68 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

William was standing beside Traveller, his arm 
clasped around General Lee's leg, and crying as if his 
heart would break. The General put his hand on 
William's head and said: 

" No more fighting — that's all over. You've been a 
good fighter. Will — now I want to see you work for 
your country's welfare in peace. Be a good boy. I 
expect a fine Christian manhood of you. Goodbye," 
and he rode away to his own home, where his invalid 
wife awaited him. 

It was good to have them home again, our men in 
gray; good though they came gaunt and footsore, 
ragged and empty-handed. And glad was the man in 
gray to cross his own threshold, though the wolf was 
at the door. Our men were ready enough for peace 
when peace — or what they mistook for peace — came; 
that is, the mass of them were. They had fought and 
starved their fill. The cries of destitute women and 
children called them home. They had no time to pause 
and cavil over lost issues, or to forge new occasions for 
quarrel. All they asked now was a chance to make 
meat and bread and raiment for themselves and those 
dependent on them. 

Yet some young spirits were restive, would have pre- 
ferred death to surrender. The lesson of utter submis- 
sion came hard. The freeborn American, fearless of 
shot and shell, and regarding free speech as his birth- 
right, found the task of keeping close watch over his 
tongue difficult. General Lee knew the mettle of the 
fiery young courier to whom he uttered the parting 
words that have been recorded. To many another 
youth just out of armor, he gave the same pacific 
counsel : 

" We have laid down the sword. Work for a united 
country." 




RESIDENCE OF ROBERT E. LEE, 1S61-65, 

Richmond, Va. 

Now the home of the Mrginia Historical Society. 



THE COUNSEL OF LEE 69 

One high-strung lad seeing a Federal soldier treat a 
lady rudely on the street (a rare happening in Rich- 
mond) , knocked him down, and was arrested. The sit- 
uation was serious. The young man's father went to 
General Ord and said: "See here, General, that boy's 
hot from the battle-field. He doesn't know anything 
but to fight." General Ord's response was: "I'll ar- 
range this matter for you. And you get this boy out 
of the city tonight." 

There happened to be staying in the same house with 
some of our friends, a young Confederate, Captain 
Wharton, who had come on sick leave to Richmond 
before the evacuation, and who, after that event, was 
very imprudent in expressing his mind freely on the 
streets, a perilous thing to do in those days. His friends 
were concerned for his safety. Suddenly he disap- 
peared. Nobody knew what had become of him. Nat- 
ural conclusion was that free speech had gotten him into 
trouble. At last a message came: "Please send me 
something to eat. I am in prison." 

Ladies came to know if Matoaca would be one of a 
committee to wait on the Provost-Marshal General in 
his behalf. She agreed, and the committee set out 
for the old Custom House where the Federals held 
court. They were admitted at once to General Pat- 
rick's presence. He was an elderly gentleman, polite, 
courteous. " I was surprised," says Matoaca, " because 
I had expected to see something with hoof and 
horns." 

" General," she said, " we have come to see you about 
a young gentleman, our friend. Captain Wharton. He 
is in prison, and we suppose the cause of his arrest was 
imprudent speech. He has been ill for some time, 
and is too feeble to bear with safety the hardships and 
confinement of prison life. If we can secure his re- 



70 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

lease, we will make ourselves responsible for his con- 
duct." She finished her little speech breathless. She 
saw the glimmer of a smile way down in his eyes. " I 
know nothing about the case," he said kindly. " Of 
course, I can not know personally of all that transpires. 
But I will inquire into this matter, and see what can 
be done for this young gentleman." Soon after, Cap- 
tain Wharton called on Matoaca. She could hardly 
have left General Patrick's presence before an orderly 
was dispatched for his release. 

Friction resulted from efforts to ram the oath down 
everybody's throat at once. I recite this instance be- 
cause of the part General Lee took and duplicated in 
multitudes of cases. Captain George Wise was called 
before the Provost to take the oath. "Why must I 
take it?" asked he. "My parole covers the ground. 
I will not." " You fought under General Lee, did you 
not?" "Yes. And surrendered with him, and gave 
my parole. To require this oath of me Is to put an 
indignity upon me and my general." " I will make a 
bargain with you, Captain. Consult General Lee and 
abide by his decision." 

The captain went to the Lee residence, where he was 
received by Mrs. Lee, who informed him that her hus- 
band was III, but would see him. The general was 
lying on a lounge, pale, weary-looking, but fully 
dressed, in his gray uniform, the three stars on his col- 
lar; the three stars — to which any Confederate colonel 
was entitled — was the only insignia of rank he ever 
wore. "They want me to take this thing, General," 
said the captain, extending a copy of the oath. " My 
parole covers It, and I do not think It should be required 
of me. What would you advise ? " 

" I would advise you to take It," he said quietly. " It 
is absurd that It should be required of my soldiers, for, 



1 fiX- 



C1/W3 



THE COUNSEL OF LEE 71 

as you say, the parole practically covers it. Neverthe- 
less, take it, I should say," " General, I feel that this 
is submission to an indignity. If I must continue to 
swear the same thing over at every street corner, I will 
seek another country where I can at least preserve my 
self-respect." 

General Lee was silent for a few minutes. Then he 
said, quietly as before, a deep touch of sadness in his 
voice: "Do not leave Virginia. Our country needs 
her young men now." 

When the captain told Henry A. Wise that he had 
taken the oath, the ex-governor said: "You have dis- 
graced the family!" "General Lee advised me to do 
it." "Oh, that alters the case. Whatever General 
Lee says is all right, I don't care what it is." 

The North regarded General Lee with greater re- 
spect and kindness than was extended to our other lead- 
ers. A friendly reporter interviewed him, and bold 
but temperate utterances in behalf of the South appeared 
in the " New York Herald " as coming from General 
Lee. Some of the remarks were very characteristic, 
proving this newspaper man a faithful scribe. When 
questioned about the political situation, General Lee had 
said: " I am no politician. I am a soldier — a paroled 
prisoner." Urged to give his opinion and advised that 
it might have good effect, he responded: 

"The South has for a long time been anxious for 
peace. In my earnest belief, peace was practicable two 
years ago, and has been since that time whenever the 
general government should see fit to give any reasonable 
chance for the country to escape the consequences which 
the exasperated North seemed ready to visit upon It. 
They have been looking for some word or expression 
of compromise and conciliation from the North upon 
which they might base a return to the Union, their own 



72 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

views being considered. The question of slavery did 
not lie in the way at all. The best men of the South 
have long desired to do away with the institution and 
were quite willing to see it alDolished. But with them 
in relation to this subject, the question has ever been: 
'What will you do with the freed people?' That is 
the serious question today. Unless some humane course 
based upon wisdom and Christian principles is adopted, 
you do them a great injustice in setting them free." 
He plead for moderation towards the South as the 
part of wisdom as well as mercy. Oppression would 
keep the spirit of resistance alive. He did not think 
men of the South would engage in guerilla warfare as 
some professed to fear, but it was best not to drive men 
to desperation. " If a people see that they are to be 
crushed, they sell their lives as dearly as possible." 
He spoke of the tendency towards expatriation, deplor- 
ing it as a misfortune to our common country at a 
time when one section needed building up so badly, 
and had, at the best, a terribly depleted force of 
young, strong men. Throughout, he spoke of the 
North and South as "we," and expressed his own 
great willingness to contribute In every way in his 
power to the establishment of the communal peace and 
prosperity. 

A brave thing for a " rebel " officer to do, he spoke 
out for Mr. Davis. "What has Mr. Davis done more 
than any other Southerner that he should be singled out 
for persecution? He did not originate secession, is 
not responsible for its beginning; he opposed it strenu- 
ously in speech and writing." 

Wherever he appeared in Richmond, Federal soldiers 
treated him with respect. As for our own people, to 
the day of his death Richmond stood uncovered when 
General Lee came there and walked the streets. If, as 




MRS. ROBERT E. LEE 

(Mary Randolph Custis) 

Great-granddaughter of Martha Washington 



THE COUNSEL OF LEE 73 

he passed along, he laid his hand on a child's head, the 
child never forgot it. His words with our young 
men were words of might, and the cause of peace owes 
to him a debt that the Peace Angel of the Union will 
not forget. 



^^THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY'' 



CHAPTER VII 

"The Saddest Good Friday" 

In Matoaca's little devotional note-book, I read: 
"Good Friday, 1865. This is the saddest Good Fri- 
day I ever knew. I have spent the whole day praying 
for our stricken people, our crushed Southland." 
*' The saddest Good Friday I ever knew " ; nearly every 
man and woman in the South might have said that with 
equal truth. 

Her "Journal" of secular events contains a long 
entry for April 14; it is as if she had poured out all 
her woes on paper. For the most part it is a tale of 
feminine trivialities, of patching and mending. "Un- 
less I can get work and make some money," she writes, 
"we must stay Indoors for decency's sake." Her shoes 
have holes in them: "They are but shoes I cobbled 
out of bits of stout cloth." The soles are worn so thin 
her feet are almost on the ground. The family is suf- 
fering for food and for all necessaries. " O God, what 
can I do ! " she cries, " I who have never been taught 
any work that seems to be needed now ! Who is there 
to pay me for the few things I know how to do? I 
envy our negroes who have been trained to occupations 
that bring money; they can hire out to the Yankees, 
and I can't. Our negroes are leaving us. We had to 
advise them to go. Cato will not. * Me lef ' Mars 
Ran? ' he cried, ' I couldn' think uv It, Miss Mato'ca ! ' " 

Woes of friends and neighbours press upon her heart. 
Almost every home has, like her own, Its empty chair, 
Its hungry mouths. Its bare larder, though some are 

77 



78 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

accepting relief from the Christian Commission or from 
Federal officers. Of loved ones in prison, they hear no 
tidings; from kindred in other parts of the South, 
receive no sign. There are no railroads, no mail ser- 
vice. In the presence of the conquerors, they walk 
softly and speak with bated breath. The evening 
paper publishes threats of arrest for legislators who 
may come to town obedient to the call Judge Campbell 
issued with Mr. Lincoln's approval. 

Good Friday was a day of joy and gladness North. 
From newspapers opened eagerly in radiant family 
circles men read out such headlines as these: "War 
Costs Over. Government Orders Curtailing Further 
Purchase of Arms, Ammunition and Commissary 
Stores." " Drafting and Recruiting Stopped." " Mili- 
tary Restrictions on Trade and Commerce Modified." 
Selma, Alabama, with its rich stores of Confederate 
cotton, was captured. Mr. Lincoln's conciliatory policy 
was commented on as " a wise and sagacious move." 
Thursday's stock market had been bullish. 

Rachel weeping for her children was comforted be- 
cause they had not died in vain. Larders were not 
bare, clothes were not lacking. The fastings and pray- 
ers of the devout were full of praise and thanksgiving. 
For the undevout, Good Friday was a feast day and a 
day of jollification. 

In Charleston, South Carolina, gaping with scars of 
shot and shell of her long, long, siege, the roses and 
oleanders and palmettoes strove to cover with beauty 
the wounds of war, and in their fragrance to breathe 
nature's sympathy and faithfulness. Her own deso- 
late people kept within doors. The streets were 
thronged with a cheerful, well-clad crowd; the city 
was overflowing with Northern men and women 
of distinction. In the bay lay Dahlgren's fleet, gay 



"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY" 79 

flags all a-flying. On land and water bands played 
merrily. 

Fort Sumter's anniversary was to be celebrated. 
The Union flag was to be raised over the ruined pile 
by General Robert Anderson, who had lost the fort in 
1 86 1. In the company duly assembled were Henry 
Ward Beecher, Theodore Tllton, William Lloyd 
Garrison, Rev. Dr. Storrs. Mr. Beecher uttered words 
of kindly sentiment towards the South. He gave God 
thanks for preserving Lincoln's life, accepting this as a 
token of divine favor to the Nation. Dr. Storrs read : 
" ' When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, 
we were like them that dream.' " The people : " ' Then 
was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with 
singing.'" And so on through the 126th Psalm, 
Then : " ' Some trust in chariots and some in horses, 
but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.' " 
And: *"They are brought low and fallen, but we are 
risen and stand upright.' " 

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was sung, and the guns 
of Dahlgren's fleet thundered honours to the Stars and 
Stripes, which, rising slowly and gracefully, fluttered 
out in triumph against the Southern sky. At sunset, 
guns boomed again, proud signal to the ending of the 
perfect day. The city, silent and sad as far as Its own 
people were concerned, rang with the strangers' joy- 
aunce. Social festivities ruled the hour. General 
Glllmore entertained at a great banquet. The bay was 
ablaze with fireworks; all forts were alight; the beau- 
tiful Sea Islands, whose owners roamed in destitute 
exile, gleamed in shining circle, the jewels of the sea. 

The 14th was a red-letter day In the National Capital. 
Everything spoke of victory and gladness. Washing- 
ton held the two idols of the North — Lincoln and 
Grant. It was Mr. Lincoln's perfect hour. He went 



8o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

about with a quiet smile on his face. The family 
breakfast at the White House was very happy; Captain 
Robert Lincoln was visiting his parents. General 
Grant was present at the Cabinet meeting during the 
forenoon, Mr. Lincoln's last. These are some of the 
President's words : 

" I think it providential that this great rebellion is 
crushed just as Congress has adjourned and there are 
none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder 
and embarrass us. If we are wise and discreet we shall 
reanimate the States and get their governments in suc- 
cessful operation with order prevailing, and the Union 
reestablished before Congress comes together in 
December. I hope there will be no persecution, no 
bloody work, after the war is over. No one need 
expect me to take any part in hanging or killing these 
men. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must 
extinguish resentment if we expect harmony and Union. 
There is too great a disposition on the part of some of 
our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with 
and dictate to these States, to treat the people not as 
fellow-citizens; there is too little respect for their 
rights." He made it plain that he meant the words 
of his second Inaugural address, hardly six weeks before, 
when he promised that his mission should be " to bind 
up the wounds of the Nation." 

" Very cheerful and very hopeful," Mr. Stanton re- 
ported, " spoke very kindly of General Lee and others 
of the Confederacy, and of the establishment of the 
Government of Virginia." Also, he spoke of the state 
government in Louisiana, and that which he had mapped 
out for North Carolina. General Grant was uneasy 
about Sherman and Johnston. The President said: 
" I have no doubt that favourable news will come. I 
had a dream last night, my usual dream which has pre- 




MRS. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 

(Lydia McLane, daughter of Senator McLane, of Delaware.) 



"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY" 8i 

ceded every important event of the war. I seemed to 
be on a singular and indescribable vessel, always the 
same, moving with great rapidity toward a dark and 
indefinite shore." 

He did not know that on that day Sherman was 
writing Johnston, *' I am empowered to make terms of 
peace." But he knew he had so empowered Sherman. 
I can imagine that through his heart the refrain was 
beating: "There will be no more bloodshed, no more 
devastation. There shall be no more humiliations for 
this Southern people, and God will give it into my 
hands to reunite my country." 

He went for a long, quiet drive with his wife. 
" Mary," he said, "we have had a hard time of it since 
we came to Washington ; but the war is over, and with 
God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace 
and happiness. Then we will go back to Illinois and 
pass the rest of our days in quiet." He longed for 
quiet. The Sabbath before, while driving along the 
banks of the James, he said: "Mary, when I die, I 
would like to lie in a quiet place like this," and related 
a dream which he felt to be presage of death. 

Sailing on the James, he read aloud twice, and in a 
manner that impressed Charles Sumner, who was pres- 
ent, this passage from Macbeth : 

"'Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ; 
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
Can touch him further.' " 

He was going, safe and whole, from the land of 
"rebels" to Washington. "We have had a hard time 
in Washington, Mary." Read Sherman's " Memoirs," 
and see what little liking great Federal generals had for 
journeys to Washington; how for peace and safety, they 



82 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

preferred their battle-fields to the place where politi- 
cians were wire-pulling and spreading nets. 

The conclusion to his perfect day was a box in Ford's 
Theatre, his wife and a pair of betrothed lovers for 
company; on the stage Laura Keene in " Our American 
Cousin." The tragic sequel is indelibly impressed on 
the brain of every American — the people leaning for- 
ward, absorbed in the play, the handsome, slender 
figure of young Wilkes Booth moving with easy, assured 
grace towards the President's box, the report of the 
pistol, the leap of Booth to the stage, falling as the flag 
caught his foot, rising, brandishing his weapon and 
crying: ^^ Sic Semper Tyrannisf", his escape with a 
broken ankle through the confused crowds; the dying 
President borne out to the boarding-house on Tenth 
Street. 

Seward's life was attempted the same evening by 
Booth's confederate, Lewis Payne, who penetrated to 
the Secretary's sick-room and wounded him and his 
son; Payne escaped. General Grant's death was a 
part of the plot; he and Mrs. Grant had declined invi- 
tation to share the President's box, and started west; 
Mr. Stanton's murder was also intended; but he escaped, 
scathless of body but bitterer of soul than ever, bitterer 
than Mr. Seward, who was wounded. 

In a letter which Matoaca wrote years afterward, 
she said: "I well remember the horror that thrilled 
our little circle when the news came. ' Now, may God 
have mercy on us ! ' Uncle exclaimed. He sat silent for 
a while and then asked : ' Can it be possible that any 
of our own people could do this thing? Some mis- 
guided fanatic?' And then, after a silence: 'Can 
some enemy of the South have done it? Some enemy 
of the South who had a grudge against Lincoln, 
too?' *What sort of secret service could they have 



"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY" 83 

had in Washington that this thing could happen ? How 
was it that the crippled assassin was able to make his 
escape?' he said when full accounts appeared. The 
explanations given never explained to him. 

" I heard some speak who thought it no more than 
just retribution upon Mr. Lincoln for the havoc he had 
wrought in our country. But even the few who spoke 
thus were horrified when details came. We could not 
be expected to grieve, from any sense of personal affec- 
tion, for Mr. Lincoln, whom we had seen only in the 
position of an implacable foe at the head of a power 
invading and devastating our land; but our reprobation 
of the crime of his taking off was none the less. Be- 
sides, we did not know what would be done to us. 
Already there had been talk of trying our officers for 
treason, of executing them, of exiling them, and In this 
talk Andrew Johnson had been loudest. 

" I remember how one poor woman took the news. 
She was half-crazed by her losses and troubles; one son 
had been killed in battle, another had died in prison, 
of another she could not hear if he were living or dead; 
her house had been burned; her young daughter, turned 
out with her in the night, had died of fright and expo- 
sure. She ran in, crying: 'Lincoln has been killed! 
thank God ! ' Next day she came, still and pale : * I 
have prayed It all out of my heart,' she said, 'that is, 
I'm not glad. But, somehow, I canU be sorry. I be- 
lieve It was the vengeance of the Lord.' " 

Jefferson Davis heard of Lincoln's death in Char- 
lotte. A tablet In that beautiful and historic city marks 
the spot where he stood. He had just arrived from 
Greensboro, was dismounting, citizens were welcoming 
him when the dispatch signed by Secretary of War 
Breckinridge was handed him by Major John Courtney. 
Mrs. Courtney, the Major's widow, told me that her 



84 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

husband heard the President say : " Oh, the pity of it ! " 
He passed it to a gentleman with the remark, "Here 
are sad tidings." The Northern press reported that 
Jefferson Davis cheered when he heard of Lincoln's 
death. 

Mrs. Davis, at the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, 
received a message from her husband announcing his 
arrival in Charlotte and telling of the assassination. 
Mrs. Davis " burst into tears, which flowed from sorrow 
and a thorough realization of the inevitable results to 
the Confederates," — her own words. 

General Johnston and General Sherman were in Mr. 
Bennett's house near Raleigh. Just before starting to 
this meeting, General Sherman received a dispatch 
announcing Mr. Lincoln's assassination. He placed it 
in his pocket, and, as soon as they were alone, handed it 
to General Johnston, watching him narrowly. *' He 
did not attempt to conceal his distress," General Sher- 
man relates. " The perspiration came out in large drops 
on his forehead." His horror and detestation of the 
deed broke forth; he earnestly hoped General Sherman 
would not charge this crime to the Confederacy. " I 
explained," states General Sherman, "that I had not 
yet revealed the news to my own personal staff or to the 
army, and that I dreaded the effect when it was made 
known." He feared that " a worse fate than that of 
Columbia would befall " Raleigh, particularly if some 
" foolish man or woman should say or do something 
that would madden his men." He took pains when 
making the calamity known to assure his army that he 
did not consider the South responsible. 

Mr. Davis, under arrest, and on the way to Macon, 
heard that Andrew Johnson had offered a reward of 
$100,000 for his arrest, charging him, Clement C. Clay 
and other prominent Southerners with " inciting, con- 



"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY" 85 

certing, procuring" the "atrocious murder" of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. Between threatening soldiery, display- 
ing the proclamation and shouting over his capture, 
Mr. Davis and his family rode and walked. 

At Macon, General Wilson received him with cour- 
tesy; when the proclamation was mentioned, Mr. Davis 
said one person at least in the United States knew the 
charge to be false, and that was the man who signed it, 
for Andrew Johnson knew that he preferred Lincoln 
to himself. 

In Augusta, Colonel Randall (author of " Maryland, 
My Maryland"), meeting Clement C. Clay on the 
street, informed him of the proclamation. The old 
ex-Senator at once surrendered, asking trial.* 

In Southern cities citizens held meetings condemning 
the murder and expressing sorrow and regret at the 
President's death. Ex-Governor Aiken, known as the 
largest slave-owner in South Carolina, led the move- 
ment in Charleston, heading a petition to General 
Gillmore for use of the Hibernian Hall that the people 
might have a gathering-place in which to declare their 
sentiments. 

Even the Confederates in prison were heard from. 
The officers confined at Fort Warren signed with 
General Ewell a letter to General Grant, expressing to 
"a soldier who will understand" their detestation of 
Booth's horrible crime. The commandant of the Fort, 
Major William Appleton, added a note testifying to 
their deep sincerity. 



* The account which I had from Colonel Randall at the home of 
Mr. John M. Graham, Atlanta, Ga., in the spring of 1905, does not 
quite coincide with that given by Mrs. Clay in " A Belle of the 
Fifties." In years elapsing since the war, some confusion of facts 
in memory is to be expected. 



THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 



CHAPTER yill 

The Wrath of the North 

The mad act of crazy Wilkes Booth set the whole 
country crazy. The South was aghast, natural recoil 
intensified by apprehension. The North, convulsed 
with anguish, was newly inflamed, and even when the 
cooler moment came and we were acquitted of any 
responsibility for Booth's crazy act, the angry humour 
of a still sore heart was against us. We, of both sec- 
tions, who suffered so lately as one people in the death 
of President McKinley, can comprehend the woe and 
unreason of the moment. 

Indignation and memorial meetings simply flayed 
the South alive. At one in the New York Custom 
House, when the grieving, exasperated people did not 
know whether to weep or to curse the more, or to end 
it by simply hanging us all, Mr. Chittenden rose and 
said: "Peace, be still! " And declared the death of 
Lincoln providential, God removing the man of mercy 
that due punishment might be meted out to rebels. 
Before the pacific orator finished, people were yelling: 
" Hang Lee ! " and " The rebels deserve damnation ! " 
Pulpits fulminated. Easter sermons demanded the 
halter, exile, confiscation of property, for " rebels and 
traitors"; yet some voices rose benignly, as Edward 
Everett Hale's, Dr. Huntington's, and Rufus Ellis', in 
words fitting the day. Beecher urged moderation. 

The new President, Andrew Johnson, was breathing 
out threatenings and slaughter before Lincoln's death. 
Thousands had heard him shout from the southern 

89 



90 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

portico of the Patent Office, "Jeff Davis ought to be 
hung twenty times as high as Haman ! " 

In Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, the following 
paragraph follows comment upon unanimity in Southern 
and Northern sentiment: "There was one exception 
to the general grief too remarkable to be passed over in 
silence. Among the extreme Radicals in Congress, 
Mr. Lincoln's determined clemency and liberality 
towards the Southern people had made an impression 
so unfavourable that, though they were shocked at his 
murder, they did not, among themselves, conceal their 
gratification that he was no longer in the way. In a 
political caucus held a few hours after the President's 
death, ' the thought was nearly universal,' to quote the 
language of one of their most representative members, 
* that the accession of Johnson to the Presidency would 
prove a godsend to the country.' " 

The only people who could profit by Lincoln's death 
were in the Radical wing of the Republican party. 
These extremists thought Johnson their man. Senator 
Wade, heading a committee that waited on him, cried : 
"Johnson, we have faith in you! By the gods, It will 
be no trouble now running the Government! " 

" Treason," said the new President, " is the highest 
crime in the calendar, and the full penalty for its com- 
mission should be visited upon the leaders of the 
Rebellion. Treason should be made odious." It is 
told as true "inside history" that the arrest and 
execution of General Lee had been determined upon; 
General Grant heard of it and went in the night to see 
President Johnson and Secretary Stanton and said to 
them: " If General Lee or any of the officers paroled 
by me are arrested while keeping the terms of their 
parole, I will resign my commission in the United States 
Army." 



THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 91 

] 

But on April 15, even General Grant was of a 
divided mind, for he wired General Ord: *' Arrest 
J. A. Campbell, Mayor Mayo, and members of the 
old Council who have not yet taken the oath of alle- 
giance, and confine them in Libby Prison 
arrest all paroled officers and surgeons until they can 
be sent beyond our lines unless they have taken the 
oath of allegiance. Extreme rigour will have to be 
observed whilst assassination Is the order of the day 
with rebels." 

General Ord replied: "The two citizens we have 
seen. They are old, nearly helpless, and, I think, 
Incapable of harm. Lee and staff are In town among 
the paroled prisoners. Should I arrest them under the 
circumstances, I think the rebellion here would be 
reopened. I will risk my life that present paroles will 
be kept, If you will allow me to so trust the people here, 
who are Ignorant of the assassination, done, I think, 
by some Insane Brutus with but few accomplices. 
Judge Campbell and Mr. Hunter pressed me earnestly 
yesterday to send them to Washington to see the Presi- 
dent. Would they have done so if guilty? " 

General Grant answered: *'I leave my dispatch of 
this date In the light of a suggestion to be executed only 
as far as you may judge the good of the service 
demands." But the venerable peace-maker and his 
associates were not to escape vengeance. 

General Halleck, from Richmond, to General Grant, 
May 5 : " Hunter Is staying quietly at home, advises all 
who visit him to support the Union cause. His hos- 
tility to Davis did much to make Davis unpopular In 
Virginia. Considering this, and the fact that President 
Lincoln advised against arresting Hunter, I would much 
prefer not to arrest him unless specially ordered to do 
so. All classes are taking the Amnesty Oath; It would 



92 DIXIE AFfER THE WAR 

be unfortunate to shake by unnecessary arrests this 
desire for general amnesty. Lee's officers are taking 
the oath; even Lee himself is considering the propriety 
of doing so and petitioning President Johnson for 
pardon." 

May II, Halleck to Stanton: " R. M. T. Hunter 
has, In accordance with General Grant's orders, been 
arrested, and is now on a gunboat in the James. Judge 
Campbell is still at his house. If necessary, he can 
be confined with Mr. Hunter. He voluntarily sub- 
mits himself to such punishment as the Government 
may see fit to impose. He is very destitute and much 
broken down, and his case excites much sympathy." 

Fortress Monroe, May 22, General Halleck wires 
General Ord, Richmond: "The Secretary of War 
directs that John A. Campbell be placed in the Libby 
or some other secure prison. Do this at once." An- 
nouncements of arrivals at Fort Pulaski in June would 
have made a fine page for any hotel desiring a brilliant 
register, thus: "Ex-Senator R. M. T. Hunter, Vir- 
ginia; ex-Assistant Secretary of War Judge J. A. 
Campbell, Alabama; ex-Senator D. L. Yulee, Florida; 
ex-Governor Clark, Mississippi; ex-Secretary of the 
Treasury G. A. Trenholm, South Carolina; and so on. 
Pulaski had rivals in other Federal prisons. 

A reward of $25,000 for "Extra Billy" did not 
bring him in, but he delivered himself up to General 
Patrick, was paroled, and went to his home in Warren- 
ton, Fauquier, and set to work with a will, though he 
was, to quote General Halleck, " seventy years old and 
quite feeble." The rightful Governor of Virginia, he 
advised her people to cheerful acceptance of Pierpont. 

As soon as the aged Governor of Mississippi learned 
that General Dick Taylor would surrender, he con- 
vened the Legislature; his message, recommending the 



THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 93 

repeal of the secession ordinance and deploring Lincoln's 
murder, was not more than read, when General Osband, 
under orders from Washington, dissolved the Legis- 
lature with threats of arrest. Governor Clark was 
arrested: "The old soldier straightened his mangled 
limbs as best he could, with great difficulty mounted his 
crutches, and with a look of defiance, said: 'General 
Osband, I denounce before high Heaven this unpar- 
alleled act of tyranny and usurpation. I am the duly 
and constitutionally elected Governor of Mississippi, 
and would resist, if In my power, to the last extremity 
the enforcement of your order." 

Governors, generals and statesmen were arrested In 
all directions. No exception was made for Alexander 
H. Stephens, the invalid, the peace-maker, the gentlest 
Roman of them all. At Liberty Hall, Mr. Stephens 
and a young friend, Robert W. Hull, were playing 
casino, when Tim, a negro, ran in, exclaiming: 
" Marster, de town Is full uh Yankees ! Whole heaps 
uv 'em, gallopin' all about, carryin' guns." Mr. 
Stephens rose and said to his guest: " I have been ex- 
pecting this. They have come for me. Excuse me, 
please, while I pack." He went into his bedroom and 
began this task, when an officer called. Mr. Stephens 
met him In the parlor. The officer said, "Are you 
Alex Stephens?" "That is my name." "I have an 
order for your arrest." " I would like to have your 
name and see your order." " I am Captain Saint, of 
the 4th Iowa, acting under General Upton's orders. 
Here Is the order." Mr. Stephens saw that himself 
and General Toombs were to be brought before General 
Upton in Atlanta. " I have been anticipating arrest," 
he said quietly, " and have been careful not to be out of 
the way, remaining here at home. General Upton need 
not have sent an armed force for me. A simple inti- 



94 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

matlon from him that my presence was desired would 
have taken me to Atlanta." His negroes were weeping 
when he was carried away; one, by special permission, 
accompanied him. 

He was left under guard in a shanty on the road; 
the troops went on to Washington, "to be back in a 
little while with Bob Toombs." "Where is General 
Toombs?" asked Mr. Stephens, when they returned. 
"We don't know," was the rejoinder. "He flanked 
us." Thus: 

General Toombs, going to the basement doorway of 
his house in Washington, exclaimed suddenly: "My 
God ! the blue-coats ! " turned and went rapidly through 
his house and out at the back door, saying to his wife : 
" Detain them at the front as long as you can." Their 
daughter, Mrs. Du Bose, helped her. " Bob Toombs " 
was asked for. Mrs. Du Bose went to bring " Bob 
Toombs " ; she reappeared leading a lovely boy. " Here 
is Bob Toombs," she said, " Bob Toombs Du Bose, 
named for my father, General Toombs." 

Mrs. Toombs took them through the house, show- 
ing them into every room — keys of which were lost and 
had to be looked for. They would burn the building, 
they insisted, if General Toombs was not produced. 
"Burn," she said, "and burn me in it. If I knew my 
husband's hiding-place, I would not betray him." They 
told her to move her furniture out. She obeyed. They 
changed their minds about the burning and went off. 
General Toombs escaped to the woods, where he 
remained hidden until nightfall. His friend. Captain 
Charles E. Irvin, got some gold from Mrs. Toombs, 
and carried the money to him, together with his mare. 
Gray Alice. From Nassau Island he crossed to Eng- 
land, where the doughty " rebel " was mightily liked. 

Mr. Davis, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Clay, General 



THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 95 

Wheeler, and General Ralls met aboard the steamer at 
Augusta, all prisoners. The President's arrest occurred 
the day before Mr. Stephens', near Irwinsville. Pic- 
ture it. Gray dawn in the Georgia woods. A small 
encampment of tents, horses, and wagons. Horses 
saddled and bridled, with pistols in holsters, picketed 
on the edge of the encampment. A negro watching 
and listening. Suddenly, he hurries to one of the tents: 
" Mars Jeff 1 " His call wakes a man lying fully 
dressed on one of the cots. " What's the matter, Jim? " 
*' Firin' 'cross de branch, suh. Jes behin' our camp. 
Marauders, I reckon." 

After leaving Washington, Mr. Davis had heard 
that marauders were in pursuit of his wife's cortege, 
and turning out of his course, he rode hard across 
country, found his family, conveyed them beyond the 
present danger, as he thought, and was about to renew 
his journey south. Horses for himself and staff were 
ready, when he heard that marauders were again near; 
he concluded to wait, and so lay down to rest. At 
Jim's call, he went to the tent-door, then turned to 
where his wife bent over her sleeping baby, Winnie. 
"They are not marauders," he said, "but regular 
troopers of the United States Army." 

She begged him to leave her quickly. His horses 
and weapons were near the road down which the cavalry 
was coming. In the darkness of the tent, he caught 
up what he took to be his raglan, a sleeveless, water- 
proof garment. It was hers. She, poor soul, threw 
a shawl over his head. He went out of the tent, she 
keeping near. "Halt!" cried a trooper, levelling a 
carbine at him. He dropped his wraps and hurried 
forward. The trooper, in the dark, might miss aim; 
a hand under his foot would unhorse him; when Mr. 
Davis would mount and away. Mrs. Davis saw the 



96 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

carbine, cast her arms about her husband, and lost him 
his one chance of escape. 

In one of her trunks, broken open by pilferers of the 
attacking party, a hoop-skirt was found. I shall refer 
to this historic hoop-skirt again. 

I left Generals Johnston and Sherman discussing Mr. 
Lincoln's death and arranging terms of peace, based 
upon what Sherman recognized as the object of the 
war — salvation of the Union; and upon instructions 
received from Mr. Lincoln's own lips in their last inter- 
view when the President authorized him to " assure 
Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina 
that, as soon as the rebel armies will lay down their 
arms, they will at once be guaranteed all their rights 
as citizens of a common country; and that, to avoid 
anarchy, the State Governments now In existence will 
be recognized." 

"When peace does come, you may call upon me for 
anything. Then, I will share with you the last crust 
and watch with you to shield your homes and families 
against danger from every quarter." Thus Sherman 
closed his reply to Calhoun's protest against the depop- 
ulation of Atlanta. Now that war was over, he was 
for living up to this. 

In soldierly simplicity, he thought he had done an 
excellent thing in securing Johnston's guarantee of 
disbandment of all Confederate forces, and settling all 
fear of guerilla warfare by putting out of arms not 
only regular Confederates, but any who might claim 
to be such. 

Stanton disposed of the whole matter by ordering 
Grant to "proceed to the headquarters of Major- 
General Sherman and direct operations against the 
enemy." This was, of course, the end to any terms 
for us. As Is known. General Johnston surrendered on 



THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 97 

the same conditions with Lee. Grant so ordered his 
course as not to do Sherman injustice. 

General Sherman wrote a spicy letter for Mr. 
Stanton's benefit: the settlement he had arranged for 
would be discussed, he said, in a different spirit " two 
or three years hence, after the Government has experi- 
mented a little more in the machinery by which power 
reaches the scattered people of this vast country known 
as the South." He had made war "hell"; now, the 
people of "this unhappy country," as he pityingly 
designated the land he had devastated, were for peace; 
and he, than whom none had done more to bring them 
to that state of mind, was for giving them some of its 
fruits. "We should not drive a people to anarchy"; 
for protection to life and property, the South's civil 
courts and governments should be allowed to remain in 
operation. 

" The assassination has stampeded the civil authori- 
ties," " unnerved them," was the conclusion he drew 
when he went to Washington when, just after the crime, 
the long roll had been beaten and the city put under 
martial law; public men were still in dread of assas- 
sination. At the grand review in Washington, Sherman, 
hero of the hour, shook hands with the President and 
other dignitaries on the stand, but pointedly failed to 
accept Mr. Stanton's. 

After Mr. Lincoln's death, leniency to "rebels" was 
accounted worse than a weakness. The heavy hand 
was applauded. It was the fashion to say hard things 
of us. It was accounted piety and patriotism to con- 
demn "traitors and rebels." Cartoonists, poets, and 
orators, were in clover; here was a subject on which 
they could "let themselves out." 



THE CHAINING OF JEFFERSON DAVIS 



CHAPTER IX 

The Chaining of Jefferson Davis 

Strange and unreal seem those days. One President 
a fugitive, journeying slowly southward; the other dead, 
journeying slowly north and west. Aye, the hand of 
God was heavy on both our peoples. The cup of 
defeat could not be made more bitter than It was; and 
into the cup of triumph were gall and wormwood 
poured. 

Hunters pursuing one chieftain with hoarse cries of 
" rebel ! " and " traitor ! " For the other, bells tolling, 
guns booming requiem, great cities hung with black, 
streets lined with weeping thousands, the catafalque a 
victor's chariot before which children and maidens scat- 
tered flowers. Nearly a month that funeral march 
lasted — from Washington through Baltimore, Philadel- 
phia, New York, Albany, Cleveland, Columbus, Indian- 
apolis, Chicago — it wound its stately way to Springfield. 
Wherever it passed, the public pulse beat hotter against 
the Southern chieftain and his people. 

Yet the dead and the hunted were men of one country, 
born in the same State. Sharp contrasts In many ways, 
they were yet enough alike in personal appearance to 
have been brothers. Both were pure men, brave, 
patriotic; both kindly and true. The dead had said of 
the living: " Let Jeff escape." 

Johnson's proclamation threw the entire South Into 
a white rage and an anguish unutterable, when it 
charged the assassination to Mr. Davis and other repre- 
sentative men of the South. Swift on it came news 

lOI 



102 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

that our President was captured, report being spread 
to cast ridicule upon him that, when caught, he was 
disguised in his wife's garments. Caricatures, claim- 
ing to be truthful portraiture, displayed him in hoops 
and petticoats and a big poke bonnet, of such flaming 
contrasts as certainly could not have been found in 
Mrs. Davis' wardrobe. 

In 1904, I saw at a vaudeville entertainment in a 
New York department store, a stereopticon representa- 
tion of the War of Secession. The climax was Mr. 
Davis In a pink skirt, red bonnet, yellow bodice, and 
parti-coloured shawl, struggling with several Federals, 
while other Federals were rushing to the attack, all 
armed to the teeth and pointing warlike weapons at 
this one fantastic figure of a feeble old man. The 
theatre was full of children. The attraction had been 
running some time and thousands of young Americans 
had doubtless accepted its travesties as history. The 
Northern friend with me was as Indignant as myself. 

When Mr. Davis' capture was announced in theatres 
and other places of amusement in the North, people 
went crazy with joy, clapping their hands and cheering, 
while bands played " Yankee Doodle " and " Star- 
Spangled Banner." Many were for having him hung 
at once. Wendell Phillips wanted him "left to the 
sting of his own conscience." 

Presently, we heard that the "Clyde" was bringing 
Mr. Davis, his family, General Wheeler, Governor 
Vance, and others, to Fortress Monroe. And then — 
will I ever forget how the South felt about that? — 
that Mr. Davis was a prisoner in a damp, casemated 
cell, that lights were kept burning in his face all night 
until he was in danger of blindness; that human eyes 
were fixed on him night and day, following his every 
movement; that his jailer would come and look at him 



CHAINING OF MR. DAVIS 103 

contemptuously and call him "Jeff"; that sightseers 
would be brought to peer at him as if he were some 
strange wild beast; that his feeble limbs had been 
loaded with chains; that he was like to lose his life 
through hardships visited upon him I To us who knew 
the man personally, his sensitiveness, dignity, and refine- 
ment, the tale is harrowing as it could not be to those 
who knew him not thus. Yet to all Americans it must 
be a regrettable chapter in our history when it is remem- 
bered that this man was no common felon, but a prisoner 
of State, a distinguished Indian-fighter, a Mexican 
veteran, a man who had held a seat In Congress, who 
had been Secretary of War of the United States, and 
who for four years had stood at the head of the Con- 
federate States. 

When they came to put chains upon him, he protested, 
said it was an indignity to which as a soldier he would 
not submit, that the Intention was to dishonour the 
South In him; stood with his back to the wall, bade 
them kill him at once, fought them off as long as he 
could — fought them until they held him down and the 
blacksmiths riveted the manacles upon his wasted limbs. 
Captain TItlow, who had the work In charge, did not 
like his cruel task, but he had no choice but to obey 
orders.* 

And this was In Fortress Monroe, where of old the 
gates fell wide to welcome him when he came as Secre- 
tary of War, where guns thundered greeting, soldiers 
presented arms, and the highest officer was proud to do 
him honour ! With bated breath we speak of Russian 
prisons. But how Is this: "Davis Is In prison; he Is 



* Fac-simile of the order under which Mr. Davis was chained 
appears in Charles H. Dana's " Recollections of the Civil War," 
p. 286. The hand that wrote it, when Mr. Davis died, paid generous 
tribute to him in the " Sun," saying: "A majestic soul has passed." 



I04 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

not allowed to say a word to any one nor is any one 
allowed to say a word to him. He is literally in a 
living tomb. His position is not much better than that 
of the Turkish Sultan, Bajazet, exposed by his captor, 
Tamerlane, in a portable iron cage." ("New York 
Herald," May 26, 1865.) The dispatch seemed posi- 
tively to gloat over that poor man's misery. 

A new fad in feminine attire came into vogue ; women 
wore long, large, and heavy black chains as decorations. 

The military murder of Mrs. Surratt stirred us pro- 
foundly. Too lowly, simple, and obscure in herself to 
rank with heroic figures, her execution lifts her to the 
plane where stand all who fell victims to the troubled 
times. Suspicion of complicity in Mr. Lincoln's mur- 
der, because of her son's intimacy with Wilkes Booth, 
led to her death. They had her before a military tri- 
bunal in Washington, her feet linked with chains. 

Several men were executed. Their prison-life and 
hers was another tale to give one the creeps. They 
were not allowed to speak to any one, nor was any 
one allowed to speak to them; they were compelled to 
wear masks of padded cloth over face and head, an 
opening at the mouth permitting space for breathing; 
pictures said to be drawn from life showed them in their 
cells where the only resting-places were not beds, but 
bare, rough benches; marched before judges with these 
same horrible hoods on, marched to the gallows with 
them on, hanging with them on. 

One of the executed, Payne, had been guilty of the 
attack on Mr. Seward and his son ; the others had been 
dominated and bribed by Booth, but had failed to play 
the parts assigned them in the awful drama his morbid 
brain wrought out. 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 



CHAPTER X 

Our Friends, the Enemy 

There was small Interchange of civilities between 
Northern and Southern ladles. The new-comers were 
in much evidence; Southerners saw them riding and 
driving in rich attire and handsome equipages, and at 
the theatre in all the glory of fine toilettes. 

There was not so much trouble opening theatres as 
churches. A good many stage celebrities came to the 
Richmond Theatre, which was well patronised. Deco- 
rated with United States flags, it was opened during the 
first week of the occupation with " Don Caesar de 
Bazan." The "Whig" reported a brilliant audience. 
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant, who had been driving 
over the city, were formally invited by General Weitzel 
to attend the play, but did not appear. 

The band played every evening in the Square, and 
our people, ladies especially, were invited to come out. 
The Square and the Capitol were at one time overrun 
with negroes. This was stopped. Still, our ladies did 
not go. Federal officers and their ladies had their music 
to themselves. "There was no intentional slight or 
rudness on our part. We did not draw back our skirts 
in passing Federal soldiers, as was charged in Northern 
papers; if a few thoughtless girls or women did this, 
they were not representative. We tried not to give 
offense ; we were heart-broken ; we stayed to ourselves ; 
and we were not hypocrites; that was all." So our 
women aver. In most Southern cities efforts were made 
to induce the ladies to come out and hear the band play. 

107 



io8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

The day Governor Pierpont arrived, windows of the 
Spotswood and Monumental were crowded with North- 
ern ladles waving handkerchiefs. " I only knew from 
the papers," Matoaca tells, "that the Mansion was 
decorated with flowers for his reception. Our own 
windows, which had been as windows of a house of 
mourning, did not change their aspect for his coming. 
Our rightful governor was a fugitive; Governor 
Pierpont was an alien. We were submissive, but we 
could not rejoice." This was the feminine and social 
side. On the political and masculine side, he was wel- 
comed. Delegations of prominent Virginians from all 
counties brought him assurances of cooperation. The 
new Governor tried to give a clean, patriotic adminis- 
tration. 

Northerners held socials in each others' houses and 
in halls; there were receptions, unattended by South- 
erners, at the Governor's Mansion and Military Head- 
quarters. It might have been more politic had we gone 
out of our way to be socially agreeable, but It would 
not have been sincere. Federal officers and their wives 
attended our churches. A Northern Methodist Society 
was formed with a group of adherents. Governor and 
Mrs. Pierpont, and, later. General and Mrs. Canby 
among them. "We of the Northern colony were very 
dependent upon ourselves for social pleasures," an ex- 
member who now considers herself a Southerner said 
to me recently. "There were some Inter-marriages. I 
remember an elopement; a Petersburg girl ran away 
with a Federal officer, and the pair sought asylum at 
my father's, in Richmond's Northern colony. Miss 
Van Lew entertained us liberally. She gave a notable 
reception to Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase and his 
beautiful daughter, Kate." Miss Van Lew, a resident, 
was suspected of being a spy during the war. 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 109 

Our ladies went veiled on the street, the motive that 
caused them to close their windows impelling them to 
cover their faces with sorrow's shield. There was not 
much opportunity for young blue-coats to so much as 
behold our pretty girls, much less make eyes at them, 
had they been so minded. That veil as an accompani- 
ment of a lissome figure and graceful carriage must have 
sometimes acted as a tantalising disguise. 

I heard of one very cute happening In which the wind 
and a veil played part. Mary Triplett, our famous 
blonde beauty, then in the rosy freshness of early youth, 
was walking along when the wind took off her veil and 
carried It to the feet of a young Federal officer. He 
bent, uplifted the vagrant mask, and, with his cap held 
before his eyes, restored it. That was a very honest, 
self-denying Yankee. Perhaps he peeped around the 
corner of his cap. There was at that time In Richmond 
a bevy of marvellously lovely buds, Mattie Ould, Miss 
Triplett's antithesis, among the number. 

The entire South seems to have been very rich then in 
buds of beauty and women of distinction. Or, was It 
that the fires of adversity brought their charms and 
virtues Into high relief? Names flitting through my 
mind are legion. Richmond's roll has been given often. 
Junior members of the Petersburg set were Tabb Boil- 
ing, General Rooney Lee's sweetheart (now his widow) ; 
Molly Bannister, General Lee's pet, who was allowed 
to ride Traveller; Anne Bannister, Alice Gregory, Betty 
and Jeannie Osborne, Betty Cabaniss, Betty and Lucy 
Page, Sally Hardy, Nannie Cocke, Patty Cowles, Julia, 
Mary and Marion Meade, and others who queened it 
over General Lee's army and wrought their pretty 
fingers to the bone for our lads in the trenches. To go 
farther afield, Georgia had her youthful " Maid of 
Athens," Jule King, afterwards Mrs. Henry Grady; 



no DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

in Atlanta were the Clayton sisters, and Maggie Poole, 
Augusta Hill, Ella Ezzard, Eugenia Goode, besides a 
brilliant married circle. In South Carolina were Mrs. 
James Chesnut, her sister, Mrs. David R. Williams, 
and all the fair troop that figure In her " Diary From 
Dixie." Louisiana's endless roster might begin with 
the Slocomb family, to which General Butler paid 
official tribute, recording that " Mrs. Slocomb equipped 
the crack military company of New Orleans, the Wash- 
ington Artillery, in which her son-in-law. Captain David 
Urquhart, is an officer." Mrs. Urquhart's daughter, 
Cora (afterwards Mrs. James Brown Potter), was, I 
think, a tiny maiden then. Beloved for her secial 
charm and her charities, Mrs. Ida B. Richardson, Mrs. 
Urquhart's sister, still lives In the Crescent City. There 
were the Leacock sisters, Mrs. Andrew Gray and Mrs. 
Will Howell, the " madonna of New Orleans." There 
was the King family, which produced Grace King, 
author and historian. , A Louisiana beauty was Addie 
Prescott, whose face and presence gave warrant of the 
royal blood of Spain flowing In her veins. In Missis- 
sippi was " Pearl Rivers," afterwards Mrs. Nicholson, 
good genius of the "Picayune"; and Mary E. Bryan, 
later the genius of the " Sunny South." Georgia and 
Alabama claim Mme. Le Vert, to whose Intellect Lamar- 
tine paid tribute, and Augusta Evans, whose " Macaria " 
ran the blockade In manuscript and came out up North 
during the war; that delightful *' Belle of the. Fifties," 
Mrs. Clement C. Clay, Is Alabama's own. Besides the 
"Rose of Texas" (Louise WIgfall), the Lone Star 
State has many a winsome " Southern Girl " and woman 
to her credit. Mrs. Roger A. Pryor Is Virginia's own. 
Among Florida's fair was the " Madonna of the Wlck- 
liffe sisters," Mrs. Yulee, Senator Yulee's wife and, 
presently, Florida's Vice-Regent for the Ladles' Asso- 




MRS. D.WID L. YLLKL 

(Daughter of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky) 

She was the wife of Senator Yulee, of Florida, Vice Regent of the 

Mount Vernon Association of Florida, and was known as 

the " Madonna of the Wickliffe Sisters." 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY iii 

ciation of Mt. Vernon. Mrs. Sallie Ward Hunt and 
Mrs. Sallie Ewing Pope lead a long list in Kentucky, 
where Mary Anderson, the actress, was in her tender 
teens, and Bertha Honore (afterwards Mrs. Potter 
Palmer) was in pinafores. To Mississippi and Mis- 
souri belongs Theodosia Worthington Valliant; and 
to Tennessee Betty Vance, whose beauty's fame was 
world-wide, and Mary Wright, later Mrs. Treadwell. 
At a ball given Prince Arthur when in this country, 
a wealthy belle was selected to lead with him. The 
prince thinking he was to choose his partner, fixed on 
Mary Wright, exquisite In poverty's simple white gown, 
and asked: "May I lead with her?" In North 
Carolina were Sophia Portrldge, women of the houses 
of Devereaux, Vance, Mordecai — but I am not writing 
the South's "Book of Fair and Noble Women." I 
leave out of my list names brilliant as any in it. 

Of all the fair women I have ever seen, Mary Meade 
was fairest. No portrait can do justice to the picture 
memory holds of her as "Bride" to D'Arcy Paul's 
" Bridegroom " in the " Mistletoe Bough," which Mrs. 
Edwin Morrison staged so handsomely that her ama- 
teurs were besought to "star" in the interest of good 
causes. Our fair maids were no idle " lilies of loveli- 
ness." The Meade sisters and others turned talents to 
account In mending fallen family fortunes. Maids and 
matrons labored diligently to gather our soldier dead 
into safe resting-places. The "Lyrical Memorial," 
Mrs. Piatt's enterprise, like the "Mistletoe Bough" 
(later produced), was called for far and wide. The 
day after presentation in Louisville, the Federal Com- 
mandant sent Mary Meade, who had impersonated the 
South pleading sepulture for her sons, a basket of 
flowers with a live white dove In the center. 

Slowly in Richmond interchange of little human kind- 



112 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

nesses between neighbors established links. General 
Bartlett, occupying the Haxall house, who had lost a 
leg in the war, was " the Yankee who conquered my 
wife," a Southerner bears witness. " I came home one 
day and found him sitting with her on my steps. He 
suffered greatly from his old wound, bore it patiently, 
and by his whole conduct appealed to her sweet woman- 
liness. His staff was quiet and orderly." 

The beautiful daughter of one family and her feeble 
grandmother were the only occupants of the mansion 
into which General Ord and his wife moved. The pair 
had no money and were unable to communicate with 
absent members of the household who had been cut 
off from home by the accidents of war while visiting in 
another city. The younger lady was ill wi^h typhoid 
fever. The general and his wife were very thoughtful 
and generous in supplying ice, brandy, and other essen- 
tials and luxuries. 

"Under Heaven," the invalid bore grateful witness 
when recovering, " I owe my life to General and Mrs. 
Ord." Her loveliness and helplessness were in them- 
selves an argument to move a heart of stone to mercy; 
nevertheless, it was virtue and grace that mercy was 
shown. 

We made small appeal for sympathy or aid; were 
too much inclined to the reverse course, carrying poverty 
and other troubles with a stiff neck, scantily-clad backs, 
long-suffering stomachs, and pride and conscience 
resolved. But — though some form of what we consid- 
ered oppression was continually before our eyes — our 
conquerors, when in our midst, were more and more 
won to pity and then to sympathy. Our commandants 
might be stern enough when first they came, but when 
they had lived among us a little while, they softened 
and saw things in a new light ; and the negroes and the 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 113 

carpet-baggers complained of them every one, and the 
authorities at Washington could not change them fast 
enough. 

Southerners here and in other cities who had Federal 
boarders were considered fortunate because of the 
money and protection secured. In such cases, there 
was usually mutual kindness and consideration, polite- 
ness keeping in the background topics on which differ- 
ences were cruel and sharp; but the sectional dividing 
lines prevented free social intermingling. 

In places garrisoned by soldiers of coarser types and 
commanded by men less gentlemanly, women some- 
times displayed more pronounced disapprobation. Not 
always with just occasion, but, again, often with cause 
only too grave. At the best, it was not pleasant to 
have strange men sauntering, uninvited, Into one's yard 
and through one's house, invading one's kitchen and 
entertaining housemaids and cooks. That these men 
wore blue uniforms was unfortunate for us and for the 
uniform. At that time, the very sight of " army blue " 
brought terror, anguish and resentment. 

Our famous physicians, Maguire and McCaw, were 
often called to the Northern sick. Dr. McCaw came 
once direct to Uncle Randolph from the Dents, 
where he had been summoned to Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, 
and Matoaca listened curiously to his and her uncle's 
cordial discussion of General Grant, who had made 
friends at the South by his course at Appomattox and 
his insistence on the cartel. 

A conversation occurring between another of our phy- 
sicians and a feminine patient is not without significance. 
The lady and the doctor's wife had been friends before 
the war. "Why has your wife not called upon me, 
Doctor?" she asked. "Has she forgotten me?" 
"No, ma'am," he answered gently, and then in a low, 



114 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

kindly voice: "But she cannot — yet — forget all that 
has happened since you were girls together." " But 
she should not treasure it against me Individually." 
*' She does not, ma'am. But she cannot forget — yet. 
You would understand if you had been in the beleagured 
land. If the good women of the North could only 
imagine themselves In the place of the women of the 
South during the last four years and In their place 
now I " 

She sighed. "I can see only too plainly that they 
have suffered unutterably many things that we have been 
spared. And that they suffer now. It's natural, too, 
that they should hate to have us here lording It over 
them." 

Very different was the spirit of the wife of a Federal 
officer stationed at Augusta, Georgia, whose declaration 
that she hoped to see the day when "black heels should 
stand on white necks" startled the State of Georgia. 
Many good ladles came South firm in the belief that all 
Southerners were negro-beaters, slave-traders, and cut- 
throats; a folk sadly benighted and needing tutelage 
In the humanities; and they were not always politic In 
expressing these opinions. 

After war, the war spirit always lingers longest in non- 
combatants — in women and in men who stayed at home 
and cheered others on. "The soldiers," said General 
Grant, " were in favor of a speedy reconstruction on 
terms least humiliating to the Southern people." He 
wrote Mrs. Grant from Raleigh, North Carolina, in 
1865: " The suffering that must exist In the South . . . 
will be beyond conception; people who speak of further 
retaliation and punishment do not conceive of the suf- 
fering endured already, or they are heartless and 
unfeeling." 

General Halleck to General Meade, April 30, 1865 : 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 115 

" The Army of the Potomac have shown the people of 
Virginia how they would be treated as enemies. Let 
them now prove that they know equally well how to 
treat the same people as friends." 

"The terrible sufferings of the South," our press 
commented, "have softened the hearts of the stern war- 
riors of the Armies of the Potomac and the Cumber- 
land, and while they are calling for pity and justice 
for us, politicians and fanatics call for vengeance." 
General Sherman said: "I do think some political 
power might be given to the young men who served in 
the rebel army, for they are a better class than the 
adventurers who have gone South purely for office." 

During an exciting epoch in reconstruction, I was 
sitting beside a wounded ex-Confederate in an opera- 
box, listening to a Southern statesman haranguing us 
on our wrongs, real and heavy enough, heaven knows, 
heavier than ever those of war had been. " Rather 
than submit to continued and intensified humiliations," 
cried the orator, a magnetic man of the sort who 
was carrying Northern audiences to opposite extremes, 
"we will buckle on our swords and go to war again! " 
" It might be observed," remarked my veteran drily, 
while I clapped my hands, " that if he should buckle 
on his sword and go to war, it would be what he did 
not do before." I held my hands quite still during the 
rest of that speech. 

"Our women never were whipped!" I have heard 
grizzled Confederates say that proudly. "There is a 
difference," remarked one hoary-headed hero, who, after 
wearing stars on his collar in Confederate service repre- 
sented his State In the Federal Congress, "between the 
political and the feminine war-spirit. The former Is 
too often for personal gain. Woman's Is the aftermath 
of anguish. It has taken a long time to reconstruct 



ii6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Southern women. Some are not reconstructed yet. 
Suffering was stamped too deep for effacement. The 
Northern woman suffered with her Southern sister the 
agony of anxiety and bereavement. But the Southern 
had other woes, of which the Northern could have no 
conception. The armies were upon us. There was 
devastation. The Southern woman and her loved 
ones lacked food and raiment, the enemy appropri- 
ating what we had and blocking ways by which 
fresh supplies might come; her home was burned 
over her head. Sometimes she suffered worse things 
than starvation, worse things than the destruction of 
her home. 

"And women could only sit still and endure, while 
we could fight back. Women do not understand that 
war is a matter of business. I had many friends among 
the men I fought — splendid, brave fellows. Person- 
ally, we were friends, and professionally, enemies. 
Women never get that point of view." 

Woman's war spirit is faithfulness and it is absolutely 
reckless of personal advantages, as the following inci- 
dent may illustrate. General Hunton and General 
Turner knew each other pretty well, although in their 
own persons they had never met. They had com- 
manded opposing forces and entertained a considerable 
respect for each other. General Turner was the first 
Federal oflicer that came to Lynchburg, when General 
Hunton's wife and youthful son were refugees; he sent 
Dr. Murray, a Confederate surgeon, to call upon Mrs. 
Hunton with the message that she was to suffer for 
nothing he could supply. General Hunton was in 
prison, she knew not where; was not sure if he were 
alive or dead. 

She had not the feelings her lord entertained for his 
distinguished antagonist, and her response was: "Tell 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 117 

General Turner I would not accept anything from him 
to save my life! " 

Yet she must have been very hungry. She and her 
youthful son had been reduced to goober-peas. First, 
her supplies got down to one piece of beef-bone. She 
thought she would have a soup. For a moment, she 
left her son to watch the pot, but not to stir the soup. 
But he thought he would do well to stir it. So he 
stirred it, and turned the pot over. That day, she had 
nothing for dinner but goober-peas. 

"When I came home," said General Hunton, when 
asked for this story's sequel, " and she told me about her 
message to General Turner, I wrote him the nicest letter 
I knew how to write, thanking him for his kindness to 
the wife of a man whose only claim on him was that 
he had fought him the best he knew how. 

" I don't think we would ever have had the trouble 
we had down here," he continued, " If Northern people 
had known how things really were. In fact, I know 
we would not. Why, I never had any trouble with 
Northern men in all my life except that I just fought 
them all I knew how. And I never had better friends 
than among my Republican colleagues in Congress after 
the war. They thought all the more of me because I 
stood up so stoutly for the old Confederate Cause." 

Bonds coming about in the natural, inevitable order 
through interchange of the humanities were respected. 
But where they seemed the outcome of vanity, frivolity, 
or coquetry, that was another matter, a very serious one 
for the Southern participant. The spirit of the times 
was morbid, yet a noble loyalty was behind It. 

Anywhere in the land, a Southern girl showing par- 
tiality for Federal beaux came under the ban. If there 
were nothing else against It, such a course appeared 
neither true nor dignified; If It were not treason to 



ii8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

our lost Confederacy, It were treason to our own poor 
boys in gray to flutter over to prosperous conquerors. 

Nothing could be more sharply defined in lights and 
shadows than the life of one beautiful and talented 
Southern woman who matronised the entertainments of 
a famous Federal general at a post in one of the Cotton 
States, and thereby brought upon herself such condemna- 
tion as made her wines and roses cost her dear. Yet 
perhaps such affiliations lessened the rigors of military 
government for her State. 

One of the loveliest of Atlanta's gray-haired dames 
tells me: "I am unreconstructed yet — Southern to the 
backbone." Yet she speaks of Sherman's godless 
cohorts as gently as if she were mother of them all. 
Her close neighbour was a Yankee encampment. The 
open ground around her was dotted with tents. 

There were "all sorts" among the soldiers. None 
gave insolence or violence. Pilfering was the great 
trouble; the rank and file were "awfully thievish." 
Her kitchen^ as usual with Southern kitchens of those 
days, was a separate building. If for a moment she 
left her pots and ovens to answer some not-to-be-ignored 
demand from the house, she found them empty on her 
return, her dinner gone — a most serious thing when it 
was as by the skin of her teeth that she got anything 
at all to cook and any fuel to cook with; and when, 
moreover, cooking was new and tremendously hard 
work. "We could not always identify the thief; when 
we could, we were afraid to incur the enmity of the 
men. Better have our things stolen than worse happen 
us, as might if officers punished those men on our report. 
I kept a still tongue in my head." 

Though a wife and mother, she was yet in girlhood's 
years, very soft and fair; had been "lapped In luxury," 
with a maid for herself, a nurse for her boy, a servant 



OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 119 

to do this, that, or the other thing, for her. She thus 
describes her first essay at the family wash. There 
was a fine well in her yard, and men came to get water. 
A big-hearted Irishman caught the little lady struggling 
over soap-suds. It looked as if she would never get 
those clothes clean. For one thing, when she tried to 
wring them, they were streaked with blood from her 
arms and hands; she had peculiarly fine and tender skin. 

"Faith an' be jabbers!" said Pat, "an' what is it 
that you're thryin' to do?" "Go away, and let me 
alone!" "Faith, an' If y,e don't lave off clanin' thim 
garmints, they'll be that doirty — " "Go 'way!" 
" Sure, me choild, an' if ye'll jis' step to the other soide 
of the tub without puttin' me to the inconvaniance — " 
He was about to pick her up in his mighty hands. She 
moved and dropped down, swallowing a sob. 

" Sure, an' it's as good a washerwoman as Ivver wore 
breeches I am," said Pat. "An' that's what I've larned 
in the army." In short order, he had all the clothes 
hanging snow-white on the line; before he left, he cut 
enough wood for her ironing. " I'm your Bridget ivery 
wash-day that comes 'roun'," he said as he swung him- 
self off. He was good as his word. This brother-man 
did her wash every week. " Sure, an' it's a shame it is," 
he would say, " the Government fadin' the lazy nagurs 
an' God an' the divvil can't make 'em wur-r-k." 

Through Tony, her son, another link was formed 
'twixt late enemies. It was hard for mothers busy at 
housework to keep track of young children; without 
fences for definement of yard-limits, and with all old 
landmarks wiped out, it was easy for children to wander 
beyond bearings. A lost child was no rarity. One 
day General and Mrs. Saxton drove up in their car- 
riage, bringing Tony. Tony had lost himself; fright, 
confusion, lack of food, had made him ill; he had been 



I20 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

brought to the attention of the general and his wife, 
who, instead of sending the child home by a subordinate, 
came with him themselves, the lady holding the pale 
little fellow in her arms, comforting and soothing him. 
Thus began friendship between Mrs. S. and Mrs. 
Saxton; not only small Tony was now pressed to take 
airings with Yankees, but his mother. The general 
did all he could to make life easier for her; had wood 
hauled and cut for her. The Southern woman's reduc- 
tion to poverty and menial tasks mortified him, as they 
mortified many another manly blue-coat, witness of the 
reduction. " It Is pitiable and It is all wrong," said 
one officer to Mrs. S. " Our people up North simply 
don't know how things are down here." A lady friend 
of Mrs. S.'s tells me that she knew a Northern officer — 
(giving his name) — who resigned his commission 
because he found himself unable to witness the sufferings 
of Southern women and children, and have a hand in 
imposing them. 

Rulers who came under just condemnation as " mili- 
tary satraps" governing In a democracy in time of peace 
by the bayonet, when divorced from the exercise of their 
office, won praise as men. Thus, General Meade's rule 
in Georgia is open to severest criticism, yet Ellen Meade 
Clarke, who saw him as the man and not as the oppres- 
sor, says : " I had just married and gone to Atlanta 
when Sherman ordered the citizens out, which order I 
hastily obeyed, leaving everything In my Peachtree cot- 
tage home. Was among the first to return. Knew all 
the generals in command; they were all neighbors; 
General Meade, who was sent to see me by some one 
bearing our name, proved a good and faithful friend 
and, on his death-bed, left me his prayer-book." 




MISS MARY MEADE, OF PETERSBURG, VA. 

She was known far and wide for her loveliness of person and character, 

her intellectual arifts and social sfraces. 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 



CHAPTER XI 

Buttons, Lovers, Oaths, War Lords, and Prayers 
FOR Presidents 

Some military orders were very irritating. 

The " Button Order" prohibited our men from wear- 
ing Confederate buttons. Many possessed no others 
and had not money wherewith to buy. Buttons were 
scarce as hens' teeth. The Confederacy had been 
reduced to all sorts of makeshifts for buttons. Thorns 
from thornbushes had furnished country folks with such 
fastenings as pins usually supply, and served convenience 
on milady's toilette-table when she went to do up her 
hair. 

One clause in that monstrous order delighted femi- 
nine hearts ! It provided as thoughtful concession to 
all too glaring poverty that: "When plain buttons 
cannot be procured, those formerly used can be covered 
with cloth." Richmond ladies looked up all the bits 
of crape and bombazine they had, and next morning 
their men appeared on the streets with buttons in mourn- 
ing ! " I would never have gotten Uncle out of the 
front door if he had realized what I was up to," 
Matoaca relates. "Not that he was not mournful 
enough, but he did not want to mou-rn that way." 

Somehow, nobody thought about Sam's button; he 
was a boy, only fifteen. He happened to go out near 
Camp Grant in his old gray jacket, the only coat he 
had; one of his brothers had given It to him months 
before. It was held together over his breast by a 
single button, his only button. A Yankee sergeant cut 

123 



124 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

it off with his sword. The jacket fell apart, exposing 
bepatched and thread-bare underwear. His mother 
and sisters could not help crying when the boy came in, 
holding his jacket together with his hand, his face suf- 
fused, his eyes full of tears of rage and mortification. 

The "Button Trouble" pervaded the entire South. 
The Tennessee Legislature, Brownlow's machine, dis- 
cussed a bill imposing a fine of $5 to $25 upon pri- 
vates, and $25 to $50 upon officers for wearing the 
" rebel uniform." The gaunt, destitute creatures who 
were trudging, stumping, limping, through that State 
on their way from distant battlefields and Northern 
prisons to their homes, had rarely so much as fifty 
cents in their pockets. Had that bill become a law 
enforced, Tennessee prisons must have overflowed with 
recaptured Confederates, or roads and woods with men 
in undress. 

Many a distinguished soldier, home-returning, igno- 
rant that such an order existed, has been held up at the 
entrance to his native town by a saucy negro sergeant 
who would shear him of buttons with a sabre, or march 
him through the streets to the Provost's office to answer 
for the crime of having buttons on his clothes. 

The provision about covering buttons has always 
struck me as the unkindest cut of all. How was a man 
who had no feminine relatives to obey the law? 
Granted that as a soldier, he had acquired the art of 
being his own seamstress, how, when he was in the 
woods or the roads, could he get scraps of cloth and 
cover buttons? 

But of all commands ever issued, the " Marriage 
Order " was the most extraordinary ! That order said 
people should not get married unless they took the Oath 
of Allegiance. If they did, they would be arrested. 
I have forgotten the exact wording, but if you will look 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 125 

up General Order No. 4,* April 29, and signed by 
General Halleck, you can satisfy any curiosity you may 
feel. It was a long ukase, saying what-all people 
should not do unless they took the oath (some felt like 
taking a good many dally!). Naturally, young people 
were greatly upset. Many had been engaged a weary 
while, to be married soon as the war should be over. 

Among those affected was Captain Sloan, whose mar- 
riage to Miss Wortham was due the Tuesday following. 
The paper containing the order, heavily ringed with 
black, darkened the roseate world upon which the bride- 
elect opened her lovely eyes Saturday morning. The 
same hand that had put the order in mourning had 
scribbled on the margin: "If Captain Sloan is not 
ready to take that oath, I am." 

Her maid informed her that Mr. Carrington, an 
elderly friend, fond of a joke, was awaiting her. 
Descending to the drawing-room, she found it full of 
sympathising neighbours, her betrothed in the midst, 
all debating a way out of the difficulty. Not even 
sharp-witted lawyers could see one. In times so out of 
joint law did not count. 

The situation was saved by the fact that General 
Halleck had a namesake in Captain Sloan's family. 
The Captain's "Uncle Jerry" (otherwise General 
Jerry Gilmer, of South Carolina) had called a son 



* General Halleck to General Stanton (Richmond, April 28, 1865) : 
" I forward General Orders No. 4. . . . You will perceive from 
paragraph V, that measures have been taken to prevent, as far as 
possible, the propagation of legitimate rebels." Paragraph V : " No 
marriage license will be issued until the parties desiring to be mar- 
ried take the oath of allegiance to the United States ; and no clergy- 
man, magistrate, or other party authorized by State laws to perform 
the marriage ceremony will officiate in such capacity until himself 
and the parties contracting matrimony shall have taken the prescribed 
oath of allegiance," all under pains of imprisonment, etc. 



126 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

"Henry Halleck" in honour of his one-time class-mate 
at West Point. When the idea of the namesake as 
basis of appeal dawned on Captain Sloan, day was 
passing. Miss Wortham's father, who, before the 
Federal Government had interfered with his dominion 
as a parent, had been anxious that his very youthful 
daughter and her betrothed should defer their union, 
was now quite determined that the rights of the lovers 
should not be abrogated by Uncle Sam. As member of 
the Confederate Ambulance Committee, he had been 
in close touch with Colonel Mulford, Federal Commis- 
sioner of Exchange ; Judge Ould, Confederate Commis- 
sioner, was his personal friend; in combination with 
these gentlemen, he arranged a meeting twixt lover and 
war lord. 

General Halleck received Hymen's ambassador with 
courtesy. The story of the namesake won his sympa- 
thetic ear. When told what consternation his order 
was causing — Captain Sloan plead other cases besides 
his own — the war lord laughed, scribbled something on 
a slip of official paper and handed it to Captain Sloan, 
saying: "Let this be known and I suppose there will 
be a good many weddings before Monday." The slip 
read like this: "Order No. 4 will not go into effect 
until Monday morning. H. W. Halleck, General 
Commanding." 

Alas ! there were no Sunday papers. The news was 
disseminated as widely as possible; and three weddings, 
at least, in high society, happened Sunday in conse- 
quence. Mrs. Sloan, a prominent member of Baltimore 
society, gave her own account of the whole matter in 
Mrs. Daniel's " Confederate Scrap-Book," which any 
one may see at the Confederate Museum. 

"The gown I wore the day after my marriage," she 
relates, "was a buff calico with tiny dots in it, and as it 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 127 

was prettily and becomingly made, I looked as well, 
and I know I was as happy, as if it had been one of 
Worth's or Redfern's most bewildering conceits — and 
I am sure it was as expensive, as it cost $30 a yard." \ 

General Halleck's order was not unique. Restric- 
tions on marriage had been incorporated in the State 
Constitution of Missouri, 1864, a section prescribing 
that "No person shall practice law, be competent as 
bishop, priest, deacon, minister, elder, or other clergy- 
man of any religious persuasion, sect, or denomination, 
teach, preach, or solemnise marriage until such person 
shall have first taken the oath required as to voters." 
" Under these provisions," commented Senator Vest, 
from whom I borrow, "the parent who had given a 
piece of bread or a cup of water to a son in the Confed- 
erate service, or who had in any way expressed sympathy 
for such son, was prohibited from registering as voter, 
serving as juror, or holding any office or acting as 
trustee, or practicing law, or teaching in any school, 
or preaching the Gospel, or solemnising the marriage 
rite.'** 

Strictly construed, the test-oath imposed by Congress 
in 1867, like that of Missouri, excluded from franchise 
and office, the parent who had given a piece of bread 
or a cup of water or his sympathy to a son in the Con- 
federate service; and the negro who had made wheat 
and corn for his master's family, as the applicant must 
swear that he had not "given aid or comfort to" Con- 
federates. 

The Missouri test-oath was one that prominent Union 
men, among them General Francis P. Blair, leader of 
the Union Party in his State, a man who had taken 



sj^" Why Solid South," Hilary Herbert. To this book I owe a 
large debt for information, as does every other present-day writer 
on reconstruction. 



128 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

part In the siege of Vicksburg and marched with 
Sherman to the sea, were unable to take. Americans 
beholding his statue in Statuary Hall, Washington, as 
that of one of the two sons Missouri most delights to 
honour, will find food for curious reflection in the fact 
that General Blair, going in full Federal uniform to 
register as a voter, was not allowed to do so. Visitors 
to Blair Hall at the St. Louis Exposition may have been 
reminded of this little incident of reconstruction. In 
1867, Father John A. Cummings was arrested and 
tried for performing parochial duties without taking 
the oath. A bill forbidding women to marry until 
they took the oath was passed by Tennessee's Senate, 
but the House rejected it. This bill, like Missouri's 
law, discriminated against ministers of the Gospel; 
those who had sympathised with "rebels" or in any 
way aided them, were condemned to work on the public 
roads and other degrading forms of expiation. 

There was no appreciable reluctance on the part of 
the people to take the oath of allegiance. They could 
honestly swear for the future to sustain the Government 
of the United States, but few, or no decent people, even 
Unionists, living among Confederates, could vow they 
had given no "aid or comfort" to one. The test-oath 
cultivated hypocrisy In natives and Invited carpet- 
baggers. A native who would take It was eligible to 
office, while the honest man who would not lie, was 
denied a right to vote. 

In readiness to take the oath of allegiance, people 
rushed so promptly to tribunals of administration that 
the sincerity of the South was questioned at the North, 
where it could not be understood how sharp was our 
need to have formalities of submission over and done 
with, that we might get to work. One striking cartoon 
pictured Columbia upon a throne gloomily regarding 




From a portrait by de Franca, photographed by Doerr, Louis\ ille, K\ 

MRS, HENRY L. POPE 

(Sarah Moore Ewiiig) 

First Kentucky State Regent D. A. R. 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 129 

a procession that came bending, bowing, kneeling, 
creeping, crawling, to her feet. General Lee leader and 
most abject, with Howell Cobb, Wade Hampton, and 
other distinguished Southerners around him. Beneath 
was this : " Can I trust these men? " On the opposite 
page, a one-legged negro soldier held out his hand; 
beneath was: " Franchise? And not this man?" 

A few people had serious scruples of conscience 
against taking the oath. I know of two or three whose 
attitude, considering their personalities, was amusing 
and pathetic. There was one good lady, Mrs. Welling- 
ton, who walked all the way from Petersburg to Rich- 
mond, a distance of twenty miles, for fear the oath 
might be required if she boarded a car ! 

I turn to Matoaca's journal: 

" I have been visiting Cousin Mary in Powhatan. 
Of course they have military government there, too. 
Soldiers ride up, enter without invitation, walk through 
the house, seat themselves at the piano and play; 
promenade to the rear, go into the kitchen, sit down 
and talk with the darkeys. 

"At church, I saw officers wearing side-arms. They 
come regularly to watch if we pray for the President 
of the United States. I hope they were edified; a 
number stood straight up during that prayer. Among 
the most erect were the M. girls, who have very 
retrousse noses. The Yankees reported : ' Not only 
do they stand up when the President is prayed for, but 
they turn up their noses,' They sent word back: 'A 
mightier power than the Yankee Army turned up our 
noses.' 

" I hear they have dealt severely with Rev. Mr. 
Wingfield because he would not read that prayer for 
the President. When brought up for it, he told the 
examining officer he could not — it was a matter of con- 



I30 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

science. They put a ball and chain on him and made 
him sweep the streets. And these people are the expo- 
nents of 'freedom,' and 'liberty of conscience.' They 
come from a land whose slogan is these words ! They 
have no right to force us to pray according to their 
views. For myself, I kneel during the prayer, I try 
to pray it; I seek to feel it, since to pray without feeling 
is mockery. But I don't feel it. 

"Uncle advised: 'My daughter, no man needs 
your prayers more than the President of the United 
States. He has great and grave responsibilities. We 
must desire that a higher power shall direct him. The 
President is surrounded by advisers bent on revenge, 
so bent on it that they seem to care nothing whatever 
for the Union — the real union of the North and South.' 
So I bow my head, and I try — God knows I try I But 
thoughts of all the blood that has been shed, of the 
homes that have been burned, the suffering and starva- 
tion endured, will rush into my mind as I kneel. Dear 
Christ 1 did you know how hard a command you laid 
upon us when you said, ' Pray for your enemies? ' " 

An entry after Mr. Lincoln's death says: "How 
can I pray that prayer in the face of this?" Below is 
pasted Johnson's proclamation charging the assassina- 
tion to Mr. Davis and other Southern leaders. This 
follows: "How can I pray for the President of the 
United States? That proclamation is an insult flung 
in the face of the whole South! And we have to 
take it." 

They had as much trouble at Washington over our 
prayers as over our few buttons and clothes. 

The Sunday after the evacuation — one week from the 
day on which the messenger came from General Lee 
to Mr. Davis — the Federals were represented in St. 
Paul's by distinguished and respectful worshippers. 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 131 

Nearly all women present were in black. When the 
moment came for the petition for " the President of 
the Confederate States and all others in authority," 
you could have heard a pin fall. The congregation 
had kinsmen in armies still under the authority of 
the President of the Confederacy; they were full of 
anxiety; their hearts were torn and troubled. Were 
they here before God to abjure their own? Were they 
to utter prayer that was mockery? To require them 
to pray for the President of the United States was like 
calling upon the martyrs of old to burn incense to 
strange gods. Dr. Minnegerode read the prayer, 
omitting the words " for the President of the Confed- 
erate States," simply saying " for all in authority." 
Generals Weitzel, Shepley and Ripley had consented 
that it was to be thus. 

Assistant Secretary of War Dana writes to Secretary 
of War Stanton : " On Friday, I asked Weitzel about 
what he was going to do in regard to opening the 
churches on Sunday. He said ministers would be 
warned against treasonable utterances and be told they 
must put up loyal prayers." 

It seems that after this conversation the determination 
of the Commandant and his Staff to wrest piety and 
patriotism out of the rebels at one fell swoop, underwent 
modification, partly, perhaps, as a concession to the 
Almighty, of whom it was fair to presume that He 
might not be altogether pleased with prayers offered 
on the point of a sword. 

Scandalised at official laxity in getting just dues from 
Heaven for the United States, Dana continues: "It 
shakes my faith a good deal in Weitzel." In subsequent 
letters he says it was Shepley's or Ripley's fault; 
Weitzel really thought the people ought to be made 
to pray right; the crime was somehow fastened finally 



132 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

on Judge Campbell's back, and Weitzel was Informed 
that he must have no further oral communications with 
this dangerous and seditious person. Thus Mr. 
Stanton rounded up Weitzel: " If you have consented 
that services should be performed in the Episcopal 
Churches of Richmond without the usual prayer said in 
loyal churches for the President, your action is strongly 
condemned by this Department. I am not willing to 
believe that an officer of the United States command- 
ing in Richmond would consent to such an omission 
of respect for the President of the United States." 
Weitzel : *' Do you desire that I should order this 
form of prayer in Episcopal, Hebrew, Roman Catholic, 
and other churches where they have a liturgy?" 
Stanton: **No mark of respect must be omitted to 
President Lincoln which was rendered to the rebel, Jeff 
Davis." Weitzel: "Dispatch received. Order will 
be issued in accordance therewith." 

Is it any wonder that Grant and Sherman between 
them finally said to President Johnson: "Mr. Presi- 
dent, you should make some order that we of the army 
are not bound to obey the orders of Mr. Stanton as 
Secretary of War." 

The Episcopal clergy presented the case clearly to 
General Weitzel and his Staff, who, as reasonable men, 
appreciated the situation. "The Church and State are 
not one in this country; we, as men, in all good faith 
take the oath of n.llegiance required of us. As priests, 
we are under ecclesiastical jurisdiction; we cannot add 
to the liturgy. A convention of the Church must be 
called. Meanwhile, we, of course, omit words held 
treasonable, reciting, ' for all in authority,' which surely 
includes the President. Forcing public feeling will be 
unwise; members will absent themselves, or go to a 
church which, not using any ritual, is not under com- 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 133 

pulsion; the order is, in effect, discrimination against 
the Episcopal Church." 

Our people, they said, " desire by quiet and inoffen- 
sive conduct to respond to the liberal policy of those in 
command; they deeply appreciate the conciliatory meas- 
ures adopted, and all the more regret to appear as 
dissenters." They wrote to President Johnson, asking 
opportunity for action by heads of the diocese; they 
said that when the South seceded, standing forms had 
obtained for months till change was so wrought. That 
letter went the rounds of the War, State, and Executive 
Departments, and was returned " disapproved," and the 
Episcopal Churches of Richmond were actually closed 
by military order until they would say that prayer. 

Even President Lincoln was moved to write General 
Weltzel, asking what it meant that he hadn't made 
people pray as they ought! "You told me not to insist 
upon little things," said Weitzel. 

Had we been let alone in the matter of praying for 
the President, we would all very soon have come to see 
the subject in the light in which Uncle Randolph 
presented it. As it was, conscientious prelates were in 
straitened positions, not wishing to lead their people in 
petitions which the latter would resent or regard at 
the best as empty formula. Omission of the prayer 
altogether was recommended by Bishop Wllmer, of 
Alabama, as the wisest course for the moment; General 
Woods suspended the Bishop and all clergy of his 
diocese; they were not to preach or to lead In church 
service; and, I believe, were not to marry the living, 
baptise the new-born, or bury the dead. President 
Johnson set such orders aside as soon as he came to his 
senses after the shock of Mr. Lincoln's death. 

General McPherson commanded pastors of Vicks- 
burg (1864) to read the prescribed prayer for the 



134 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

President at each and every service ; pastors of churches 
without such prescribed form were Instructed to invent 
one. The Bishop of Natchez, WIHIam Henry Elder, 
was banished because he would not read the prayer. 
Some young ladles, of VIcksburg, were banished because 
they rose and left the church, on Christmas morning, 
when a minister read it. An order signed by General 
McPherson, served on each, said she was "hereby 
banished and must leave the Federal lines within forty- 
eight hours under penalty of imprisonment." No 
extension of time for getting "their things ready" was 
allowed. Permission was given for the mother of one 
delinquent to chaperon the bevy, which, with due cere- 
mony, was deported under flag of truce, hundreds of 
Federal soldiers watching. 

One Sunday in New Orleans under Butler's rule. 
Major Strong was at Dr. Goodrich's church; time came 
for prayer for the Confederacy; there was silence. 
Major Strong rose and thundered: "Stop, sir! I 
close this church In ten minutes ! " Rev. Dr. Leacock * 
wrote Butler a tender letter begging him not to force 
people to perjury in taking the oath through fear, 
prefacing: "No man more desires restoration of the 
Union than I." Helen Gray, Dr. Leacock's grand- 
daughter, tells me : " My grandfather was arrested In 
church and marched through the city in ecclesiastical 
robes to answer for not praying as Butler bade; Rev. 
Dr. Goodrich and Rev. Mr. Fulton (now Editor of the 
'Church Standard') were also arrested. Butler sent 
them North to be imprisoned In Fort Lafayette. The 
levee was thronged with people, many weeping to see 
them go. They were met at New York by influential 

* An Englishman of Queen's College ; the Bishop of IvOndort 
had sent him as Chaplain to Lord Sligo, Governor of Jamaica, but 
at this time he was Rector of Christ Church, New Orleans. 



LOVERS AND PRAYERS 135 

citizens, among these Samuel Morse, the Inventor, who 
offered them his purse, carriage and horses. They were 
paroled and entertained at the Astor House. Some 
people were bitter and small towards them ; many were 
kind, among these, I think, was Bishop Potter. Hon. 
Reverdy Johnson took up their case. Grandfather 
served St. Mark's, Niagara, Canada, in the rector's 
absence; the people presented him, through Mrs. Dr. 
Marston, with a purse; he served at Chamblee, where 
the people also presented him with a purse. Mrs. 
Greenleaf, Henry W. Longfellow's sister, sent him a 
purse of $500; she had attended his church during 
ante-bellum visits to New Orleans, and she loved him 
dearly. Rev. F. E. Chubbuck, the Yankee Chaplain 
appointed to succeed my grandfather, called on my 
grandmother, expressed regrets and sympathies, and 
offered to do anything he could for her. I tell the tale 
as it has come to me." Government reports confirm 
this In essentials. 

Of course, denominations not using a liturgy, had 
an advantage, but they were not exempt. Major 
B. K. Davis, Lexington, Mo., April 25, 1865, to Major- 
General Dodge: " On the 7th of April, from the well- 
known disloyalty of the churches of this place, I Issued 
an order that pastors of all churches return thanks for 
our late victories. The pastor of the M. E. Church 
declined to do so, and I took the keys of his church." 

In Huntsvllle, Alabama, 1862, Rev. F. A. Ross, 
Presbyterian minister, was arrested and sent north by 
General Rousseau because, when commanded to pray 
for the Yankees, he prayed: "We beseech thee, O 
Lord, to bless our enemies and remove them from our 
midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy sight ! " * 



* " Civil War & Reconstruction in Alabama," W. L. Fleming, 



/" 



136 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

"The Confederate Veteran" tells this of General 
Lee. At Communion in St. Paul's soon after the occu- 
pation, the first person to walk up to the altar and kneel 
was a negro man. Manner and moment made the act 
sinister, a challenge, not an expression of piety. The 
congregation sat, stunned and still, not knowing what 
to do. General Lee rose, walked quietly up the aisle 
and knelt near the negro. The people followed and 
service proceeded as if no innovation had been 
attempted. The custom by which whites preceded 
negroes to the altar originated, not in contempt for 
negroes, but in ideas of what was right, orderly and 
proper. So far were whites from despising negroes in 
religious fellowship that it was not strange for both 
races to assemble in plantation chapels and join in wor- 
ship conducted by the black preacher in the white 
preacher's absence. I sometimes think those old South- 
erners knew the negro better than we ever can. But 
just after the war, they were not supposed to know 
anything of value on any subject. 

Wherever there was a press, it was muzzled by 
policy if not by such direct commands as General 
Sherman's in Savannah, when he ordained that there 
should be no more than two newspapers, and forbade 
"any libelous publication, mischievous matter, prema- 
ture acts, exaggerated statements, or any comments 
whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities," 
on pain of heavy penalties to editors and proprietors. 
Some people say we ought, even now, for the family 
honour, to hush up everything unpleasant and discred- 
itable. Not so! It Is not well for men In power to 
think that their acts are not to be Inquired into some 
day. 



CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES 



CHAPTER XII 

Clubbed to His Knees 

As illustrations of embarrassments we had to face, I 
have chiefly chosen incidents showing a kindly and 
forbearing spirit on the part of Federal command- 
ers, because I desire to pay tribute wherever I may to 
men in blue, remembering that Southern boys are now 
wearing the blue and that all men wearing the blue 
are ours. I have chiefly chosen incidents in which the 
Federal ofl'icers, being gentlemen and brave men — being 
decent and human — revolted against exercise of cruelty 
to a fallen foe. 

Truth compels the shield's reverse. 

In Richmond, one officer in position went to a promi- 
nent citizen and demanded $600 of him, threatening to 
confiscate and sell his home if he did not give it. This 
citizen, a lawyer and man of business, knew the threat 
could not be executed, and refused to meet the demand. 
Others not so wise paid such claims. In all parts of the 
South, many people, among them widows and orphans, 
were thus impoverished beyond the pinched condition 
in which war left them. Some sold their remnants of 
furniture, the very beds they slept on, a part of their 
scanty raiment, and in one case on official record, "the 
coverlid off the baby's bed," to satisfy the spurious 
claims of men misusing authority. 

An Instance Illustrating our helplessness is that of 
Captain Bayard, who came out of the war with some 
make-shift crutches, a brave heart, and a love affair 
as the sum total of his capital in life. He made his 

139 



I40 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

first money by clerical work for sympathetic Federal 
officials. This he invested in a new suit of clothes; 
"They are right nice-looking," he said with modest 
pride when conveying the pleasing intelligence to one 
interested; and he bought a pair of artificial feet. 

Then he set out to see his sweetheart, feeling very 
proud. It was the first time he had tried his feet on 
the street, and he was not walking with any sense of 
security, but had safely traversed a square or two and 
was crossing a street, when a Federal oflficer came 
galloping along and very nearly ran over him; he 
threw up his cane. The horse shied, the cavalryman 
jumped off and knocked him down. As fast as he 
struggled up, the cavalryman knocked him down again. 
A burly man ran to his assistance ; the cavalryman struck 
this man such a blow that it made tears spring in his 
eyes; then mounted and galloped off. "He was 
obliged to see," said the captain, "that I was a cripple, 
and that I could not get out of his way or withstand 
his blows." 

The worst Virginia had to bear was as nothing to 
what the Carolinas suffered. There was that poor 
boy, who was hung in Raleigh on Lovejoy's tree — 
where the Governor's Mansion now stands. He had 
fired off a pistol ; had hurt nobody — had not attempted 
to hurt anybody; it was just a boy's thoughtless, crazy 
deed. 

Entering Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, S. C, one 
perceives on a tall marble shaft "The Lone Star of 
Texas" and this: "Calvin S. Crozier, Born at Bran- 
don, Mississippi, August 1840, Murdered at Newberry, 
S. C, September 8, 1865." 

At the close of the war, there were some 99,000 
Confederates in Federal prisons, whose release, begin- 
ning in May, continued throughout the summer. 



CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES 141 

Among these was Crozler, slender, boyish in appearance, 
brave, thin to emaciation, pitifully weak and homesick. 
It was a far cry to his home in sunny Galveston, but he 
had traversed three States when he fell ill in North 
Carolina. A Good Samaritan nursed him, and set him 
on his way again. At Orangeburg, S. C, a gentleman 
placed two young ladies, journeying in the same direc- 
tion, under his care. To Crozier, the trust was sacred. 
At Newberry, the train was derailed by obstructions 
placed on the track by negro soldiers of the 33d U. S. 
Regiment, which, under command of Colonel Trow- 
bridge, white, was on its way from Anderson to 
Columbia. Crozier got out with others to see what 
was the matter. Returning, he found the coach invaded 
by two half-drunk negro soldiers, cursing and using 
indecent language. He called upon them to desist, 
directing their attention to the presence of ladies. 
They replied that they "didn't care a d — I" One 
attempted gross familiarities with one of the ladies. 
Crozier ejected him; the second negro interfered; there 
was a struggle in the dark; one negro fled unhurt; the 
other, with a slight cut, ran towards camp, yelling: 
"I'm cut by a d — d rebel!" Black soldiers came in 
a mob. 

The narrative, as told on the monument, concludes: 
"The infuriated soldiers seized a citizen of Newberry, 
upon whom they were about to execute savage revenge, 
when Crozier came promptly forward and avowed his 
own responsibility. He was hurried In the night-time 
to the bivouac of the regiment to which the soldiers 
belonged, was kept under guard all night, was not 
allowed communication with any citizen, was condemned 
to die without even the form of a trial, and was shot 
to death about daylight the following morning, and 
his body mutilated." 



142 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

He had been ordered to dig his own grave, but 
refused. A hole had been dug, he was made to kneel 
on its brink, the column fired upon him, he tumbled 
into it, and then the black troops jumped on it, laughing, 
dancing, stamping. The only mercy shown him was 
by one humane negro, who, eager to save his life, 
besought him to deny his identity as the striker of the 
blow. White citizens watched their moment, removed 
his remains, and gave them Christian burial. 

There was the burning of Brenham, Texas, Septem- 
ber 7, 1866. Federal soldiers from the post attended 
a negro ball, and so outraged the decencies that negro 
men closed the festivities. The soldiers pursued the 
negro managers, one of whom fled for safety to a 
mansion, where a party of young white people were 
assembled. The pursuers abused him in profane and 
obscene terms. The gentlemen reminded them that 
ladies were in hearing; they said they "didn't care a 
d — !" and drew pistols on the whites. A difficulty 
ensued, two soldiers were wounded, their comrades car- 
ried them to camp, returned and fired the town. The 
incendiaries were never punished, their commander 
spiriting them away when investigation was begun.* 

"Numbers of our citizens were murdered by the 
soldiers of the United States, and in some instances 
deliberately shot down by them, in the presence of their 
wives and children," writes Hon. Charles Stewart, of 
reconstruction times, early and late, in Texas, and cites 
the diabolical midnight murder of W. A. Burns and 
Dallas, his son, giving the testimony of Sarah, daughter 
of one, sister of the other, and witness of the horrible 
deed, from the performance of which the assassins 
walked away "laughing." "Let no one suppose that 

*See Stewart on "Texas" in "Why Solid South," by Hilary 
Herbert and others. 



CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES 143 

the instances given were isolated cases of oppression 
that might occur under any Government, however 
good," says Mr. Stewart. "They were of such fre- 
quent occurrence as to excite the alarm of good people." 

Federal posts were a protection to the people, afford- 
ing a sense of peace and security, or the reverse, accord- 
ing to the character of the commanders. To show how 
differently different men would determine the same 
issue, It may be cited that General Wilde confiscated the 
home of Mrs. Robert Toombs to the uses of the Freed- 
men's Bureau, ordering her to give possession and limit- 
ing the supplies she might remove to two weeks' pro- 
visions. General Steedman humanely revoked this order, 
restoring her home to Mrs. Toombs. There was no 
rule by which to forecast the course a military poten- 
tate, ignorant of civil law, might pursue. The mood 
he was in, the dinner he had eaten, the course of a flirta- 
tion on hand, motives of personal spite, gain or favor- 
itism, might determine a decision affecting seriously a 
whole community, who would be powerless to appeal 
against it, his caprice being law. 

In a previous chapter I have told a story showing 
General Saxton in a most attractive light. In his 
"Provisional Governorship of South Carolina," Gov- 
ernor Perry says: "The poor refugees (of the Sea 
Islands) were without fortune, money or the means 
of living ! Many had nothing to eat except bread and 
water, and were thankful if they could get bread. I 
appointed W. H. Trescott to go to Washington and 
represent them in trying to recover their lands. He 
procured an order for the restoration, but General 
Saxton or some of his sub-agents thwarted in some way 
the design and purport of this order, and I believe the 
negroes are still in possession." 

So, in some places you will hear Southerners say that, 



144 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

save for domestic and Industrial upheavals resulting 
from emancipation and for the privations of acute 
poverty, they suffered no extreme trials while under the 
strictly martial regime — were victims of no act of tyr- 
anny from local Federal authorities ; in other places, you 
will hear words reflecting praise on such authorities; in 
others, evidence is plain that inhabitants endured worse 
things of military satraps than Israel suffered of 
Pharaoh. 

As the days went by, there were fresh occasions for 
the conclusion: "The officers who gave Captain 
Bayard work and the officer who knocked him down are 
types of two classes of our conquerors and rulers. One 
is ready to help the cripple to his feet, the other to 
knock him down again and again. Congress will club 
the cripple with the negro ballot." " If that be true," 
said some, " the cripple will rise no more. Let me go 
hence ere my eyes behold it. Spilled blood and ruin 
wrought I can forgive, but not this thing 1 " 



NEW FASHIONS 



CHAPTER XIII 

New Fashions : A Little Bonnet and an Alpaca 

Skirt 

The confessions of Matoaca: 

" I will never forget how queer we thought the dress 
of the Northern ladies. A great many came to Rich- 
mond, and Military Headquarters was very gay. Band 
answered band in the neighbourhood of Clay and 
Twelfth Streets, and the sound of music and dancing 
feet reached us through our closed shutters. 

" Some ladies wore on the streets white petticoats, 
braided with black, under their dresses, which were 
looped up over these. Their gowns were short walking 
length, and their feet could be seen quite plainly. That 
style would be becoming to us, we said to ourselves, 
thinking of our small feet — at least I said so to myself. 
Up to that time we had considered it immodest to show 
our feet, our long dresses and hoop-skirts concealing 
them. We had been wearing coal-scuttle bonnets of 
plaited straw, trimmed with corn-shuck rosettes. I 
made fifteen one spring, acquired a fine name as a 
milliner, and was paid for my work. 

" I recall one that was quite stunning. I got hold 
of a bit of much-worn white ribbon and dyed it an 
exquisite shade of green, with a tea made of coffee- 
berries. Coffee-berries dye a lovely green; you might 
remember that if you are ever in a war and blockaded. 
Our straw-and-shuck bonnets were pretty. How I wish 
I had kept mine as a souvenir — and other specimens of 
my home-made things! But we threw all our home- 

147 



148 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

made things away — we were so tired of make-shifts! — 
and got new ones as soon as we could. How eager we 
were to see the fashions I We had had no fashions for 
a long time. 

"When the Northern ladles appeared on the streets, 
they did not seem to have on any bonnets at all. They 
wore tiny, three-cornered affairs tied on with narrow 
strings, and all their hair showing in the back. We 
thought them the most absurd and trifling things I But 
we made haste to get some. How did we see the fash- 
ions when we kept our blinds closed? Why, we could 
peep through the shutters, of course. Remember, we 
had seen no fashions for a long time. Then, too, after 
the earlier days, we did not keep our windows shut. 

" I began braiding me a skirt at once. The Yankees 
couldn't teach me anything about braid! To the 
longest day I live, I will remember the reign of skirt- 
braid during the Confederacy! There was quite a 
while when we had no other trimming, yet had that in 
abundance, a large lot having been run through the 
blockade ; it came to the Department. The Department 
got to be a sort of Woman's Exchange. Prices were 
absurd. I paid $75 for a paper of pins and thought it 
high, but before the war was over, I was thankful to 
get a paper for $100. I bought, once, a cashmere 
dress for the price of a calico, $25 a yard, because it 
was a little damaged in running the blockade. At the 
same time, Mrs. Jefferson Davis bought a calico dress 
pattern for $500 and a lawn for $1,000; one of my 
friends paid $1,400 for a silk, another, $1,100 for a 
black merino. Mine was the best bargain. It lasted 
excellently. I made it over in the new fashion after 
the evacuation. One of the styles brought by the 
Northern ladies was black alpaca skirts fringed. I got 
one as soon as I could. 



NEW FASHIONS 149 

"The Yankees introduced some new fashions in 
other things besides clothes that I remember vividly, 
one being canned fruit. I had never seen any canned 
fruit before the Yankees came. Perhaps we had had 
canned fruit, but I do not remember it. Pleasant inno- 
vations in food were like to leave lasting impressions 
on one who had been living on next to nothing for an 
indefinite period." 

The mystery of her purchase of the alpaca skirt and 
the little bonnet is solved by her journal : 

" I am prospering with my needlework. I sew early 
and late. My friends who are better off give me work, 
paying me as generously as they can. Mammy Jane 
has sold some of my embroideries to Northern ladies. 
Many ladies, widows and orphans, are seeking employ- 
ment as teachers. The great trouble is that so few 
people are able to engage them or to pay for help of 
any kind. Still, we all manage to help each other 
somehow. 

"Nannie, our young bride, is raising lettuce, radish, 
nasturtiums. In her back yard for sale. She is painting 
her house herself (with her husband's help). She Is 
going to give the lettuce towards paying the church 
debt. She has nothing else to give. I think I will 
raise something to buy window-panes for this house. 
Window-panes patched with paper are all the fashion 
in this town. 

"The weather is very hot now. After supper, we 
go up on Gamble's Hill, our fashionable cooling-off 
resort, to get a breath of fresh air; then come back and 
work till late In the night. O, for a glimpse of the 
mountains ! a breath of mountain air ! But I can only 
dream of the Greenbrier White and the Old Sweet 
Springs ! 

" Last night, on Gamble's Hill, we observed near us 



150 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

a party whom we recognized by accent and good clothes 
as Northerners. One of the ladies, looking down on 
our city, said : * Behold the fruits of secession I ' Below 
us in the moonlight lay Richmond on her noble river, 
beautiful in spite of her wounds. A gentleman spoke: 
' Massachusetts thought of seceding once. I am sorry 
for these people.' How I wanted to shout : ' Behold 
the fruits of invasion ! ' But, of course, I did not. I 
thanked our advocate with my eyes." 

A few had a little store laid up previous to the evacua- 
tion. A short time before that, the Confederate 
Government was selling some silver coin at $i for $60 
in notes; at Danville, it was sold for $70; and thrifty 
ones who could, bought. 

Women who had been social queens, who had had 
everything heart could wish, and a retinue of servants 
happy to obey their behests and needing nothing, now 
found themselves reduced to harder case than their 
negroes had ever known, and gratefully and gracefully 
availed themselves of the lowliest tasks by which they 
might earn enough to buy a dress for the baby, a pair 
of shoes for little bare feet, coffee or tea or other 
luxury for an invalid dear one, or a bit of any sort of 
food to replenish a nearly empty larder. 

The first greenbacks were brought to one family by 
a former dining-room servant. His mistress, unable 
to pay him wages, had advised him to seek employment 
elsewhere. At the end of a week, he returned, saying: 
" Mistiss, here is five dollahs. I'm makin' twenty 
doUahs a month, an- rations, waitin' on one uh de 
Yankee officers. I'll bring you my wages evvy week." 
" John," she said, " I don't know how to take it, for I 
don't see how I can ever pay it back." He knew she 
was in dire straits. "You took care uh me all my life, 
Mistiss, an' learnt me how to work. _ I orter do whut 



NEW FASHIONS 151 

I kin fuh you." Seeing her still hesitate: "You got 
property, you kin raise money on presen'y. Den you 
kin pay me back, but I'd be proud ef you wouldn' 
bother yo'se'f." Could her son have done more ? The 
Old South had many negroes as good and true. Was 
the system altogether wrong that developed such char- 
acters ? 

Some of our people had Northern friends and rela- 
tives who contrived money to them. Mrs. Gracebridge 
was one of the fortunate ; and everybody was glad. No 
one deserved better of fate or friends. She had enter- 
tained many refugees, was the most hospitable soul in 
the world. Had her table been large enough to seat 
the world, the world would have been welcome. From 
her nephew, living in New York, an officer of the United 
States Navy came with a message and money. 

She had a way of addressing everybody as " my dear 
friend." Her household teasingly warned her that she 
was going to call this messenger "my dear friend." 
"Never!" she exclaimed. "Never in the world will 
I call a Yankee, ' my dear friend ! ' Never! How can 
you say such a thing to me ! I am surprised, astonished, 
at the suggestion ! " They listened, and before she and 
her guest had exchanged three sentences, heard her 
calling him "my dear friend," in spite of the insistent 
evidence of his gorgeous blue uniform, gold lace and 
brass buttons, that he was decidedly a Yankee. 

It was a custom, rooted and grounded in her being, 
to offer refreshments to guests; when nothing else was 
left with which to show good feeling, she would bring 
in some lumps of white sugar, a rarity and a luxury, and 
pass this around. Never will spying intimates forget 
the expression of that naval officer's countenance when, 
at her call, a little black hand-maid presented on an 
old-fashioned silver salver, in an exquisite saucer, a iew 



152' DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

lumps of white sugar! He looked hard at it; then 
grasped the situation and a lump, glancing first at her, 
then at the sugar, as if he did not know whether to 
laugh or to cry. 

She was a delightful woman. She and her two little 
darkeys afforded her friends no end of diversion. She 
had never managed her negroes in slavery-time. After 
the war, everybody's darkeys did as they pleased; hers 
did a little more so. At this pair, she constantly 
exclaimed, in great surprise : " They don't mind a word 
I say!" "My dear lady!" she was reminded, "you 
must expect that. They are free. They don't belong 
to you now." 

And she would ask: "If they don't belong to me, 
whose are they ? " That was to her a hopeless enigma. 
They had to belong to somebody. It was out of 
decency and humanity that they should have nobody to 
belong to! They would stand behind her chair, 
giggling and bubbling over with merriment. 



THE GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD 



CHAPTER XIV 

The General in the Cornfield 

We did anything and everything we could to make a 
living. Prominent citizens became pie-sellers. Colonel 
Cary, of General Magruder's Staff, came home to find 
his family desperately poor, as were all respectable folks. 
He was a brave soldier, an able officer; before the war, 
principal of a male academy at Hampton. Now, he 
did not know to what he could turn his hand for the 
support of himself and family. He walked around his 
place, came in and said to his wife : " My dear, I have 
taken stock of our assets. You pride yourself on your 
apple-pies. We have an apple-tree, and a cow. I will 
gather the apples and milk the cow, and you will make 
the pies, and I will go around and sell them." 

Armed with pies, he met his aforetime antagonists 
at Camp Grant and conquered them quite. The pies 
were delicious; the seller was a soldier, an officer of 
distinction, in hard luck; and the men at Camp Grant 
were soldiers, too. There was sharp demand and good 
price; only the elite — officers of rank — could afford to 
indulge in these confections. Well it was that Yankee 
mothers had cultivated in their sons an appetite for 
pies. One Savannah lady made thirty dollars selling 
pies to Sherman's soldiers; in Georgia's aristocratic 
" City by the Sea," high-bred dames stood at basement 
windows selling cakes and pies to whoever would buy. 

Colonel Cary had thrifty rivals throughout Dixie. 
A once rich planter near Columbia made a living by 
selling flowers; a Charleston aristocrat peddled tea by 

155 



156 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the pound and molasses by the quart to his former 
slaves. General Stephen Elliott, Sumter's gallant 
defender, sold fish and oysters which he caught with 
his own hands. His friend, Captain Stoney, did like- 
wise. Gentlemen of position and formerly of wealth 
did not pause to consider whether they would be dis- 
credited by pursuing occupations quite as humble. 
Men of high attainments, without capital, without any 
basis upon which to make a new start in life except 
"grit," did whatever they could find to do and made 
merry over it. 

Yet reporters going over our battle-swept, war-scarred 
land from whose fields our laboring class had been by 
one fell stroke diverted, judged us by evidences of inertia 
seen from windows of creepy little cars — (where we 
had any cars at all) — that stopped every few hours to 
take on wood or water or to repair something or other. 
For a long time, there was good reason why our creepy 
railroads should be a doubly sore subject. Under the 
reconstruction governments every State paid thousands 
of dollars for railroads that were never built. 

All that Southern white men did, according to some 
ready scribes, was to sit around cross-roads stores, 
expectorate tobacco-juice, swap jokes, and abuse Yankees 
and niggers. In honesty, It must be confessed there 
was too much of this done, any being too much. Every 
section has its corps of idlers. Its crew of yarn-splnners 
and drinkers, even In ordinary times when war has not 
left upon men the Inevitable demoralisation that follows 
In Its train. Had railway travellers gone Into cotton 
and cornfields and tobacco lots, they would have found 
there, much of the flower and chivalry of the Old South 
"leading the row." Sons of fathers who had been the 
wealthiest and most Influential men In Dixie came home 
from the war to swing the hoe and drive the plow as 



GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD 157 

resolutely as ever they had manned a battery or charged 
the breastworks. 

But the young men of the South were not born tillers 
of the soil; not fitted by inheritance or education for 
manual toil. They were descendants of generations 
who had not labored with their hands but had occupied 
themselves as lawyers, doctors, politicians, gentlemen of 
leisure, and agriculturists commanding large working 
forces. Our nation might have been gainer had the Gov- 
ernment devised measures by which talented men could 
have been at once bound to its interests and their gifts 
utilised for the common advantage. Instead of which, 
they were threatened with trial for treason, with execu- 
tion or exile, were disfranchised, disqualified, put under 
the ban. Many who would have made brilliant and 
useful servants of the Republic were driven abroad and 
found honourable service in Mexico, Brazil, Egypt and 
Europe. 

It is difficult for us at this day to realise what little 
promise life held for the young American of the South; 
difficult even for the South of the present to appreciate 
the irritations and humiliations that vexed and chafed 
him. Many felt that they had no longer a country. 

Mischief was inevitable as the result of repressed or 
distorted energies, thwarted or stifled ambition. Some 
whose record for courage and steadiness on the field 
of battle reflects glory on our common country, failed 
utterly at adaptation. But as the patient effort of the 
great body politic changed the times and opened oppor- 
tunity, middle-age and youth were ready to rush In with 
a will, occupying and Improving fields of Industry. 

But the old people of the South never reacted. Many 
simply sat down and died, succumbing to bereavement, 
hardships and heartbreak. They felt that their country 
was dead. Men of their own blood, their brothers, 



158 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

had set an alien race, an ignorant race, half-human, half- 
savage, above them; were insisting that they should send 
their children to school with children of this race, while 
their consciences cried out against the mere discussion 
of this thing as an evil to themselves and the negro, 
and against the thing itself as crime. Intermarriage 
was discussed in legislative halls; bills sanctioning it 
were introduced; and the horrible black, social evil due 
to passions of the white man and the half-human, half- 
savage woman — the incubus, the nightmare, under 
which the whole section had groaned with groanings 
that cannot be uttered — was flung in their faces as more 
than fair reason. 

With reconstruction there was strengthening of the 
tendency towards expatriation. Despair and disgust 
drove many away; and more would have gone had 
means been at hand. Whole families left the South 
and made homes In Europe; among these, a goodly 
proportion were proud old Huguenots from South 
Carolina. In some of the Cotton States it looked as if 
more white men were to be lost thus than had been lost 
^"'in battle. In December, 1867, Mr. Charles Nathan, 
of New Orleans, announced through the press that he 
had contracted with the Emperor of Brazil to transport 
1,000 yearly to that empire. 

Many went Into the enemy's country — went North. 
Their reports to old neighbours were that they liked the 
enemy Immensely at home; the enemy was serenely 
unconscious of the mischief his fad was working in 
other people's homes. He set down everything ill 
that happened South to the Southern whites' "race 
prejudice"; and sipped his own soup and ate his own 
pie In peace. The immigrant learned that it was wise 
to hold his tongue when discussion of the negro came 
up. He was considered not to know anything worth 



GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD 159 

hearing upon the subject. His most careful and rational 
utterances would be met with a pitying look which said 
as plainly as words lips polite withheld: " Race preju- 
dice hallucination ! " 

General Lee raised no uncertain voice against expat- 
riation; from his prison cell, Jefferson Davis deplored 
it in the first letters he was allowed to write. Lee set 
prompt example in doing what his hand found to do, 
and in choosing a task rather for public service than for 
private gain. I quote a letter written by Mrs. Lee to 
Miss Mason, dated Derwent, Virginia, December, 
1865: 

"The papers will have told you that General Lee 
has decided to accept the position at Lexington. I do 
not think he is very fond of teaching, but he is willing 
to do anything that will give him an honourable support. 
He starts tomorrow en cheval for Lexington. He 
prefers that way, and, besides, does not like to part 
even for a time from his beloved steed, the companion 
of many a hard-fought battle. . . . The kindness 
of the people of Virginia to us has been truly great, and 
they seem never to tire. The settlement of Palmore's 
surrounding us does not suffer us to want for anything 
their gardens or farms can furnish. . . . My heart 
sinks when I hear of the destitution and misery which 
abound further South — gentle and refined women 
reduced to abject poverty, and no hope of relief." 

Far more lucrative positions had been offered him; 
salaries without work, for the mere use of his name. 
Solicitations came from abroad, and brilliant opportuni- 
ties invited across the ocean. He took the helm at 
Washington College with this avowal : " I have a self- 
imposed task which I must accomplish. I have led the 
young men of the South in battle. I have seen many of 
them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life 



i6o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

now to training young men to do their duty in life." 
Urged in 1867 to run for office, he declined, believing 
that his candidacy might not contribute to sectional 
unification. As nearly perfect was this man as men 
are made. Our National Capitol is the poorer because 
his statue is not there., If it ever is, I should like to 
see on its pedestal Grant's tribute: "There was no use 
to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what 
was right." 

When the crippled and impoverished General Hood 
refused to receive money raised by subscription, the 
"Albany Evening Journal" commented: "It is the 
first instance we have ever seen recorded of a * Southern 
gentleman' too proud or self-reliant to accept filthy 
lucre, come from what source it may." The " Peters- 
burg Index- Appeal " responded: 

" Hood has oniy done what Lee did a dozen times, what Beaure- 
gard did, what Magruder did, and what President Davis did. The 
noble response of Magruder to the people of Texas, who contributed 
a handsome purse to procure him a fine plantation, was the impulse 
and utterance of the universal spirit of the Southern soldier : ' No, 
gentlemen, when I espoused the cause of the South, I embraced 
poverty and willingly accepted it.' " 

Near Columbia, on the ruins of his handsome home 
which Sherman burned. General Wade Hampton, clever 
at wood-work, built with his own hands and with the 
help of his faithful negroes, a lowly cottage to shelter 
himself and family. A section was added at a time, 
and, without any preconceived design on his part, the 
structure stood, when completed, a perfect cross. Miss 
Isabella Martin, looking upon it one day, exclaimed: 
"General, you have here the Southern Cross 1" So 
"Southern Cross" the place was called. Here, Mrs. 
Wade Hampton, who, as Miss McDuffie, had been the 
richest heiress In South Carolina, and as such and as 



GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD i6i 

Hampton's wife, the guardian angel of many black 
folk, wrought and ruled with wisdom and with sweet- 
ness unsoured by reverses. South Carolina offered 
Hampton a home, as Virginia and then Washington 
College offered Lee, but Hampton, almost in want, 
refused. 

This is the plight In which General M. C. Butler, 
Hampton's aide, came out of the war: "Twenty-nine 
years old, with one leg gone, a wife and three chil- 
dren to support, seventy slaves emancipated, a debt of 
$15,000, and. In his pocket, $1.75 in cash." That 
was the situation of thousands. It took manhood to 
make something of it. 

For months after the surrender. Confederates were 
passing through the country to their homes, and hospi- 
tality was free to every ragged and footsore soldier; 
the poor best the larder of every mansion afforded was 
at the command of the gray-jacket. How diffidently 
proud men would ask for bread, their empty pockets 
shaming them I When any man turned them off with 
cold words. It was not well for his neighbours to know, 
for so, he was like to have no more respectable guests. 
The soldiers were good company, bringing news from 
far and wide. Most were cheerful, glad they were 
going home, undaunted by long tramps ahead. The 
soldier was used to hard marches. Now that his course 
was set towards where loved ones watched for his com- 
ing, life had its rosy outlook that turned to gray for 
some who reached the spot where home had stood to 
find only a bank of ashes. Reports of country through 
which they came were often summed up : " White folks 
In the fields, negroes flocking to towns. Freedmen's 
Bureau offices everywhere thronged with blacks." 

A man who belonged to the " Crippled Squad," not 
one of whom had a full complement of arms and legs, 



i62 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

told this story: As four of them were limping along 
near Lexington, they noticed a gray-headed white man 
in rough, mud-stained clothes turning furrows with a 
plow, and behind him a white girl dropping corn. 
Taking him for a hired man, they hallooed : " Hello, 
there 1" The man raised his head. "Say," they 
called, " can you tell us where we can get something to 
eat?" He waved them towards a house, where a lady 
who was on the porch, asked them to have a seat and 
wait while she had food cooked. 

They had an idea that she prepared with her own 
hands the dinner to which they presently sat down, of 
hot hoe-cakes, buttermilk, and a little meat so smothered 
in lettuce leaves that it looked a great deal. When they 
had cleared up the table, she said: " I am having more 
bread cooked if you can wait a few minutes. I am sorry 
we have not more meat and milk. I know this has 
been a very light repast for hungry men, but we have 
entertained others this morning, and we have not much 
left. We hate to send our soldiers hungry from the 
door; they ought to have the best of everything when 
they have fought so long and bravely and suffered so 
much." The way she spoke made them proud of the 
arms and legs they didn't have. 

Now that hunger was somewhat appeased, they began 
to note surroundings. The dwelling was that of a 
military man and a man of piety and culture. A lad 
running in addressed the lady as " Mrs. Pendleton," and 
said something about "where General Pendleton is 
plowing." 

They stumbled to their crutches I and in blushing con- 
fusion, made humble apologies, all the instincts of the 
soldier shocked at the liberties they had taken with an 
officer of such high grade, and at the ease of manner 
with which they had sat at his table to be served by 



GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD 163 

his wife. They knew their host for William Nelson 
Pendleton, late Brigadier-General, C. S. A., Chief of 
Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, a fighting 
preacher. She smiled when they blundered out the 
excuse that they had mistaken him for a day-labourer. 

"The mistake has been made before," she said. 
" Indeed, the General is a day-labourer in his own field, 
and it does not mortify him in the least now that all 
our people have to work. He is thankful his strength 
is sufficient, and for the help that the schoolboys and 
his daughters give him." She put bread into their 
haversacks and sent them on their way rejoicing. The 
day-labourer and his plow were close to the roadside, 
and as they passed, they drew themselves up in line and 
brought all the hands they had to their ragged caps in 
salute. 

Dr. Robert G. Stephens, of Atlanta, tells me of a 
Confederate soldier who, returning armless to his 
Georgia home, made his wife hitch him to a plow which 
she drove; and they made a crop. A Northern mis- 
sionary said in 1867, to a Philadelphia audience, that 
he had seen in North Carolina, a white mother hitch 
herself to a plow which her eleven-year-old son drove, 
while another child dropped into the furrows seeds 
Northern charity had given. I saw in Virginia's Black 
Belt a white woman driving a plow to which her young 
daughters, one a nursing mother, were hitched; and 
near the same time and place an old negro driving a 
milch-cow to his cart. "Uncle Eph, aren't you 
ashamed," I asked, " to work your milch-cow? " " Law, 
Miss, milch-white-' Oman wuk. Huccom cow can't 
wuk?" 



TOURNAMENTS AND PARTffiS 



CHAPTER XV 

Tournaments and Starvation Parties 

It would seem that times were too hard and life too 
bitter for merry-making. Not so. With less than half 
a chance to be glad, the Southerner will laugh and dance 
and sing — and make love. At least, he used to. The 
Southerner is no longer minstrel, lover, and cavalier. 
He is becoming a money-maker. With cannons at our 
gates and shells driving us into cellars, guitars were 
tinkling, pianos were not dumb, tripping feet were not 
stayed by fear and sorrow. When boys in gray came 
from camp, women felt it the part of love and patriotism 
to give them good cheer, wearing smiles while they 
were by, keeping tears for them when absent. 

With the war over and our boys coming home for 
good, ah, it was not hard to laugh, sing and dance, poor 
as we werel "Soldiers coming up the road," "Some 
soldiers here for tonight," the master of the house would 
say, and doors would fling wide. "Nice fellows, I 
know," or " I knew this one's father, and that one's 
uncle is Governor — and this one went to school with 
our Frank; and these fought side by side with friends 
of ours," or "Their names are so-and-so," or just, 
"They are gentlemen." Maidens would make them- 
selves fair; wardrobes held few or no changes, but one 
could dress one's hair another way, put a rose in one's 
tresses, draw forth the many-times-washed-over or 
thrice-dyed ribbon for adornment. After supper, there 
would be music in the parlor, and perhaps dancing. 
But not always ! too often, the guest's feet were not shod 

167 



1 68 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

for dancing. It might be that he was clothed from 
shirt to shoe in garments from the host's own store. 
Many a soldier would decline entering the great house 
and beg off from presentations, feeling the barn a more 
fitting shelter for his rags, and the company of ladies 
a gift the gods must withhold. 

Joy reigned in every household when its owner came 
home from the war, joy that defeat at arms could not 
kill. The war was over! it had not ended as we had 
prayed, but there was to be no crying over spilt milk 
if young people had their way. 

Departure of old servants and installation of new 
and untried ones was attended with untold vexation, but 
none of this was allowed to interfere with the pleasure 
and happiness of young people when it was possible to 
prevent it. Southern mistresses kept domestic difficul- 
ties in the background or made merry over them. On 
the surface, domestic machinery might seem to move 
without a hitch, when in reality it was in so severe a 
state of dislocation that the semblance of smooth opera- 
tion was little short of a miracle. 

Reserves of cotton and tobacco that had escaped the 
attention of the Yankee Army sold high. Fortunate pos- 
sessors were soon flush with greenbacks which were put 
in quick circulation. It was a case of a little new bonnet 
and an alpaca skirt with girls everywhere ; women had 
done without clothes so long, they felt they just must 
have some now ; our boys had gone in rags so long, 
they must have new clothes, too; everybody had lived 
so hard and been so sad, there must be joy now, 
love-making and dancing. The "Starvation Party" 
did not go out of fashion with war. Festal boards 
were often thinly spread, but one danced not the less 
lightly for that. Enough it was to wing the feet 
to know that the bronzed young soldier with his 




MISS ADDIE PRESCOTT 

(A Louisiana Belle) 
Afterwards Mrs. R. G. H. Kean, of Lvnchburc^, Va. 



TOURNAMENTS AND PARTIES 169 

arm about your waist must leave you no more for the 
battle. 

To show how little one could be festive on, we will 
take a peep at a starvation party given on a plantation 
near Lexington, North Carolina, by Mrs. Page, soon 
after General Kilpatrick's troops vacated the mansion. 
" We had all been so miserable," Mrs. Page tells, " that 
I was just bound to have some fun. So I gave a 
dining." 

She invited ten ladies, who all came wondering what 
on earth she could set before them. They walked; 
there was not a carriage in the neighbourhood. They 
were all cultured, refined women, wives and daughters 
of men of prominence, and accustomed to elegant enter- 
tainment. A few days before, one of them had sent 
to Mrs. Page for something to eat, saying she had not 
a mouthful in the house, and Mrs. Page had shared 
with her a small supply of Western pork and hardtack 
which her faithful coloured man, Frank, had gotten 
from the Yankees. Mrs. Page had now no pork left. 
Her garden had been destroyed. She had not a chair 
in the house, and but one cooking utensil, a large iron 
pot. And not a fork, spoon, cup, plate or other table 
appointment. 

With pomp and merriment, Mrs. Drane, a clergy- 
man's widow, the company's dean and a great favourite 
with everybody, was installed at the head of the 
bare, mutilated table, where rude benches served as 
seats. Mrs. Marmaduke Johnston, of Petersburg, was 
accorded second place of honour. The menu consisted 
of a pudding of corn-meal and dried whortle-berrie3 
sweetened with sorghum ; and beer made of persimmons 
and honeyshucks, also sweetened with sorghum. The 
many-sided Frank was butler. The pudding, filling the 
half of a large gourd, was placed In front of Mrs. 



1 70 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Drane, and she, using hardtack as spoon, dipped It up, 
depositing it daintily on other hardtack which answered 
for plates and saucers. 

The beer was served from another gourd Into cups 
made of newspapers folded into shape ; the ladies drank 
quickly that the liquid might not soak through and be 
lost. They enjoyed the beverage and the pudding 
greatly and assured their hostess that they had rarely 
attended a more delightful feast. The pudding had 
been boiled In the large iron pot, and Frank had trans- 
ferred it to the gourd. In his kitchen and pantry, 
gourds of various sorts and sizes seemed to ask : " Why 
were vessels of Iron, pewter, and copper ever Invented, 
and what need has the world of china-ware so long as 
we grow on the backyard fence?" 

How Frank's mistress, a frail-looking, hospitable, 
resourceful little woman, provided for herself and 
family and helped her friends out of next to nothing; 
how her cheerfulness, industry, and enterprise never 
failed her or others; and how Frank aided her, would 
in itself fill a book. 

But then It Is a story of Southern verve and Invent- 
iveness that could be duplicated over and over again. 

Did not Sir George Campbell write in an English 
magazine of how much he enjoyed a dinner In a Southern 
mansion, when all the feast was a dish of roasted apples 
and a plate of corn-bread? Not a word of apology 
was uttered by his host or hostess; converse was so 
cultured and pleasing, welcome so sincere, that the 
poverty of the board was not to be weighed In the 
balance. This host who had so much and so little to 
give his guest was Colonel Washington Ball, nearest 
living kinsman to General George Washington. 

The fall of 1865 was, In Virginia at least, a bountiful 
one. Planters' sons had come home, gone Into the 



TOURNAMENTS AND PARTIES 171 

fields, worked till the crop was all laid by; and then, 
there was no lack of gaiety. A favourite form of diver- 
sion was the tournament, which furnished fine sport for 
cavalry riders trained under Stuart and Fitz Lee. 

One of the most brilliant took place in 1866, at a 
famous plantation on the North Anna River. The 
race-track had been beaten down smooth and hard 
beforehand by the daily training of knights. It was in 
a fair stretch of meadow-land beyond the lawns and 
orchards. The time was October, the weather ideal, 
the golden haze of Indian Summer mellowing every line 
of landscape. On the day appointed the grounds 
were crowded with carriages, wagonettes, buggies and 
vehicles of every sort, some very shabby, but borrowing 
brightness from the fair young faces within. 

The knights were about twenty-five. Their steeds 
were not so richly caparisoned as Scott's in " Ivanhoe," 
but the riders bestrode them with perhaps greater ease 
and grace than heavy armor permitted mediaeval prede- 
cessors. Some wore plumed hats that had covered their 
heads in real cavalry charges, and more than one war- 
rior's waist was girt with the red silk sash that had belted 
him when he rode at the head of his men as Fitz Lee's 
captain. A number were In full Confederate uniform, 
carrying their gray jackets as jauntily as If no battle 
had ever been lost to them. One of these attracted 
peculiar attention. He was of very distinguished 
appearance; and from his arm floated a long streamer 
of crape. Every one was guessing his name till the 
herald cried : " Knight of Liberty Lost ! '* The mourn- 
ing knight swept before the crowd, bearing off on the 
point of his spear the three rings which marked his 
victory for at least that run. 

For this sport, three gibbet-like structures stand equal 
distances apart on a straight race-track. From the arm 



172 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

of each, a hook depends and on each hook a ring is 
hung. Each knight, with lance poised and aimed, rides 
full tilt down this track and takes off all the rings he 
can in a given number of rides. He who captures most 
rings Is victor. It is his right to choose the Queen of 
Love and Beauty, riding up to her on the field and 
offering a ring upon his spear. The knight winning the 
second highest number chooses the First Maid of 
Honour; and so on, until there is a royal quartette of 
queen and maids. 

The tournament was to the South what baseball is to 
the nation; it was intensely exciting and picturesque, 
and, by reason of the guerdon won, poetic, investing an 
ordinary mortal with such power as Paris exercised 
when he gave the golden apple to Venus. It had spice 
of peril to make it attractive, if "danger's self is lure 
alone." Fine horsemanship, a steady hand, and sure 
eye were essentials. 

"Liberty Lost" won, and the mourning knight laid 
his laurels at the feet of a beautiful girl who has since 
reigned as a social queen in a Northern home. The 
coronation took place in the mansion that evening. 
After a flowery address, each knight knelt and offered 
a crown to his fair one. The symbols of royalty were 
wreaths of artificial flowers, the queen's shaped like a 
coronet, with sprays forming points. Her majesty wore 
a gown that had belonged to her great-grandmother; 
very rich silk in a bayadere pattern, that served as 
becoming sheath for her slim blonde loveliness. After 
the coronation, the knights led their fair ones out in the 
" Royal Set" which opened the ball. 

Perhaps it is better to say that George Walker, the 
negro fiddler, opened the ball. He was the most 
famous man of his craft in the Piedmont region. There 
he was that night in all his glory at the head of his band 



TOURNAMENTS AND PARTIES 173 

of banjoists, violinists and violincelllst; he was grandeur 
and gloss personified when he made preliminary bow and 
flourish, held his bow aloft, and set the ball in motion I 

"Honour yo' pardners!" 

"And didn't we do as George told us to do!" 
Matoaca says. " Such dance-provoking melodies fol- 
lowed as almost bewitched one's feet. 'Life on the 
Ocean Wave,' ' Down-town Girls Won't You Come 
Out Tonight and Dance by the Light of the Moon ! ' 
' Fisher's Horn-Pipe ' and ' Ole Zip Coon ' were some 
of them. Not high-sounding to folks of today, but 
didn't they make feet twinkle I People did what was 
called ' taking steps ' in those days. I can almost hear 
George's fiddle now, and hear him calling: 'Ladies 
to the right 1 Gents to the right 1 Ladies to the center 1 
Gents to the center! Hands all 'roun' an' promenade 
all I ' Who could yell ' Do se do ! ' and ' Sashay all I ' 
with such a swing? " 

About one o'clock all marched in to supper, the queen 
and her knights and maidens leading. It was hard 
times in Virginia, but the table groaned under such 
things as folks then thought ought to adorn a festal 
board. There was not lacking the mighty saddle-o'- 
mutton, roast pig with apple in his mouth, Smithfield 
ham, roast turkey, and due accompaniments. The com- 
pany marched back to the ball-room, and presently 
marched again to a second supper embracing sweets of 
all descriptions. 

Commencements at schools and colleges, which the 
South began to restore and refill as quickly as she was 
able, brought the young people together and were strong 
features in our social life. So were Sunday schools; 
and, in the country, protracted meetings or religious 
revivals. And barbecues. Who that has gone out to a 
frolic in the Southern woods and feasted on shote or 



174 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

mutton roasted over a pit and basted with vinegar and 
red pepper gravy, can forget what a barbecue is 1 

Summer resorts became again meeting-grounds for 
old friends, and new. Social gatherings at the Green- 
brier White Sulphur were notable. General Lee was 
there with his daughter, and the first to lead in extending 
courtesies to Northern guests attracted to the White by 
the reputation of that famous watering-place. Again, 
our women were at their ancient haunts, wearing silks 
and laces as they were prospering under the new 
order or as their great-grandmothers' trunks, like that 
of Love and Beauty's Queen, held reserves not yet 
exhausted. And under the silks and laces, hearts cried 
out for loved ones who would gather on the green lawns 
and dance In the great halls no more. But heroism 
presented a smiling face and took up life's measure 
again. 

In cities changes were not so acute as In the country, 
where people, without horses and vehicles, were unable 
to visit each other. The larger the planter, the more 
extreme his family's Isolation was like to be, his land 
and his neighbours' lands stretching for miles between 
houses. I heard a planter's wife say, *' Yours Is the 
first white woman's face I have seen for six months." 
Her little daughter murmured mournfully: "And I 
haven't seen a little white girl to play with for longer 
than that." Multitudes who had kept open house could 
no longer. To a people In whom the social Instinct was 
so strong and hospitality second nature, abrupt ending 
of neighbourly Intercourse was a hard blow. 

Stay and bankrupt laws for the benefit of the debtor 
class and bearing much hardship on creditors, often 
orphan minors, were passed, and under these planters 
were sold out and moved to new places, their overseers 
often succeeding them and reigning In their stead. It 



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MRS. DAVID URQUHART, OF NEW ORLEANS 

A famous hostess, distinguished for her social graces 

and her good deec!s. 



TOURNAMENTS AND PARTIES 175 

was not an unknown thing for men to manage to get 
themselves sold out under these laws, thus evading pay- 
ment of obligations and at the same time securing a 
certain quota for themselves, which the law allowed. 
It seemed to me that many who took it were better off 
than before. There were unfortunates who had to 
pay security debts for bankrupts. Much hard feeling 
was engendered. 

Some measure for relief of the debtor class was 
necessary. A man who had contracted debts on the 
basis of thousands of acres at fifteen to fifty dollars an 
acre, and owning a hundred or more negroes, worth a 
thousand dollars each, could not meet in full such 
engagements when his land would not bring two dollars 
an acre, when his negroes were set free, and hired 
labour, if he had wherewithal to hire, could not be 
relied on. Some men took the Bankrupt Law for pro- 
tection, then set themselves to work and paid obligations 
which could not be exacted by law. 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Bondage of the Free 

" Had slavery lasted a few years longer," I have heard 
my mother say, " it would have killed Julia, my head- 
woman, and me. Our burden of work and responsi- 
bility was simply staggering." 

In the ante-bellum life of the mistress of a Southern 
plantation there was no menial occupation, but adminis- 
trative work was large and exacting. The giving out 
of rations, clothes, medicines, nursing of the sick, cutting 
out of garments, sewing, spinning, knitting, had to be 
directed. The everlasting teaching and training, the 
watch-care of sometimes several hundred semi-civilized, 
semi-savage people of all ages, dispositions and tempers, 
were on the white woman's hands. 

The kitchen was but one department of that big 
school of domestic science, the home on a Southern 
plantation, where cooks, nurses, maids, butlers, seam- 
stresses and laundresses had understudies or pupils; and 
the white mistress, to whom every student's progress 
was a matter of keen personal interest and usually of 
affectionate concern, was principal and director. The 
typical Southern plantation was, in effect, a great social 
settlement for the uplift of Africans. 

For a complete picture of plantation life, I beg my 
readers to turn to that chapter in the " Life of Leonidas 
'Polk" written by his son, Dr. W. M. Polk, which 
describes "Leighton" in the sugar-lands on Bayou La 
Fourche. Read of the industrial work and then of the 
Sabbath, when the negroes assembled in the bishop's 

179 



i8o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

house where the chaplain conducted the service while 
the bishop sat at the head of his servants. Worship 
over, women withdrew into another room, where Mrs. 
Polk or the family governess gave them instruction; 
the children into still another, where Bishop Polk's 
daughter taught them; the men remained with the 
chaplain for examination and admonition. The bishop 
made great efforts to preserve the sanctity of family life 
among his servants. He christened their babies; their 
weddings were celebrated in his own home, decorated 
and illuminated for them. The honour coveted by his 
children was to hold aloft the silver candlesticks while 
their father read the marriage service. If a couple 
misbehaved, they were compelled to marry, but without 
a wedding-feast. 

Andrew P. Calhoun, eldest son of John C. Calhoun, 
was President of the South Carolina Agricultural Col- 
lege and owner of large lands in Alabama and South 
Carolina. He took pride in raising everything con- 
sumed on his plantations. In the New York home of 
his son, Mr. Patrick Calhoun, three of his old servants 
live; his wife's maid says proudly: "I have counted 
thirty things on my Miss' dinner-table that were grown 
on the place." Cotton and wool were grown on the 
place and carded, spun, dyed, woven into cloth by negro 
women; in great rooms, well lighted, well aired, well 
equipped, negro cutters, fitters and seamstresses fash- 
ioned neat and comfortable garments for a contented, 
well-cared-for laboring force. Mrs. Calhoun devoted 
as much time to this department of plantation work, 
which included the industrial and moral education of 
negro women, as Mr. Calhoun devoted to the general 
management of his lands and the industrial and moral 
uplift of negro men. The Polk and Calhoun plan- 
tations were types of thousands; and their owners types 




FRANCES DEVEREUX POLK 

(Wife of General Leonidas Polk, the Warrior Bishiop.) 

She was the spiritual and industrial educator of many negroes, and 

the mistress of a large sugar plantation. 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE i8i 

of thousands of planters who applied the same princi- 
ples, if sometimes on lesser scale, to farming operations. 
No institutional work can take the place of work of 
this kind. It is like play to the real thing. Without 
decrying Hampton, Petersburg and Tuskegee, it can 
be said with truth that these institutions and many more 
in combination would be unable to do for a savage race 
what the old planters and the old plantation system of 
the South did for Africa's barbarians. Employers of 
white labor might sit at the feet of those old planters 
and learn wisdom. Professor Morrison, of the Chair 
of History and Sociology at Clemson College, tells me 
that the instruction of students in their duty to their 
servants constituted a recognised department in some 
Southern colleges. 

Mammy Julia was my mother's assistant superintend- 
ent, so to speak. " I could trust almost anything to 
her," her mistress bore testimony, " for she appreciated 
responsibility and was faithfulness itself. I don't know 
a negro of the new order who can hold a candle to her." 
Mammy Julia and my mother had no rest night or day. 
Black folks were coming with troubles, wants, quarrels, 
ailments, births, marriages and deaths, from morning 
till night and night till morning again. " I was glad 
and thankful — on my own account — when slavery ended 
and I ceased to belong, body and soul, to my negroes." 
As my mother, so said other Southern mistresses. 

Perhaps the Southern matron's point of view may be 
somewhat surprising to those who have thought that 
under ante-bellum conditions, slavery was all on the 
negro's side and that all Southern people were fiercely 
bent on keeping him in bonds. Many did not believe 
in slavery and were trying to end it. 

Mrs. Robert E. Lee's father and uncle freed some 
five hundred slaves, with General Lee's approval, thus 



1 82 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

alienating from her over $500,000 worth of property. 
The Hampton family, of South Carolina, sent to Liberia 
a great colony of freed slaves, who presently plead to 
be brought home. General Preston, Confederate, of 
Kentucky, freed his negroes; he would not sell, and 
could not afford to keep, them ; they were " over-running 
and ruining his plantation, and clearing up forests for 
firewood; slavery is the curse of the South." 

Many families had arranged for a gradual eman- 
cipation, a fixed percentage of slaves being freed by 
each generation. By will and otherwise, they provided 
against division of families, an evil not peculiar to 
slavery, as immigrant ships of today, big foundling 
asylums, and train-loads of home-seeking children bear 
evidence. 

But freedom as it came, was inversion, revolution. 
Whenever I pass "The House Upside Down" at a 
World's Fair, I am reminded of the South after free- 
dom. In " South Carolina Women in the Confed- 
eracy," * Mrs. Harby tells how Mrs. Postell Geddings 
was in the kitchen getting Dr. Geddings' supper, while 
her maid, in her best silk gown, sat in the parlour and 
entertained Yankee officers. Charleston ladies cooked, 
swept, scrubbed, split wood, fed horses, milked and 
watered the cattle; while filling their own places as 
feminine heads of the house, they were servants-of-all- 
work and man of the house. Mrs. Crittendon gives an 
anecdote matching Mrs. Geddings'. A Columbia lady 
saw in Sherman's motley train an old negress arrayed 
in her mistress' antiquated, ante-bellum finery, lolling on 
the cushions of her mistress' carriage, and fanning (in 



* A collection of records, sketches, etc., edited and published by- 
Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Smythe, Mrs. Kohn, Miss Poppenheim and Miss 
Washington, of that State. Owner. August Kohn, Columbia, S. C. 
For confirmation of first chapter of this book, see same. 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 183 

winter) with a huge ostrich-feather fan. "Why, Aunt 
Sallie, where are you going?" she called out impul- 
sively. "Law, honey! I'se gwine right back intuh dc 
Union ! " and on rode Aunt Sallie, feathers and flowers 
on her enormous poke-bonnet all a-flutter. 

Mrs. Jewett, of Stony Creek, saw her negro man 
walking behind the Yankee Army with her husband's 
suit of clothes done up in a red silk handkerchief and 
slung on a stick over his shoulder. Her two mulatto 
nurse-girls laid down their charges, attired themselves 
in her best apparel and went; her seamstress stopped 
sewing, jumped on a horse behind a soldier who invited 
her, and away she rode. 

As victorious armies went through the country, they 
told the negroes, "You are free!" Negroes accepted 
the tidings in different ways. Old Aunt Hannah was 
not sure but that the assurance was an insult. " Law, 
marster! " she said, " I ain' no free nigger! I is got a 
marster an' mistissi Dee right dar in de great house. 
Ef you don' b'lieve me, you go dar an' see." "You're 
a d — d fool ! " he cried and rode on. " Sambo, you're 
free!" Some negroes picked up the master's saddle, 
flung it on the master's horse, jumped on his back and 
rode away with the Yankees. After every Yankee army 
swarmed a great black crowd on foot, men, women, and 
children. They had to be fed and cared for; they 
wearied their deliverers. 

Yankees told my father's negroes they were free, but 
they did not accept the statement until " Ole Marster" 
made it. I remember the night. They were called 
together in the back yard — a great green space with 
blossomy altheas and fruit-trees and tall oaks around, 
and the scent of honeysuckles and Sweet Betseys making 
the air fragrant. He stood on the porch beside a table 
with a candle on it. I, at his knee, looked up at him 



1 84 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

and out on the sea of uplifted black faces. Some car- 
ried pine torches. He read from a paper, I do not 
know what, perhaps the emancipation proclamation. 
They listened silently. Then he spoke, his voice tremb- 
ling: 

" You do not belong to me any more. You are free. 
You have been like my own children. I have never felt 
that you were slaves. I have felt that you were charges 
put into my hands by God and that I had to render 
account to Him of how I raised you, how I treated you. 
I want you all to do well. You will have to work, if 
not for me, for somebody else. Heretofore, you have 
worked for me and I have supported you, fed you, 
clothed you, given you comfortable homes, paid your 
doctors' bills, bought your medicines, taken care of your 
babies before they could take care of themselves; when 
you were sick, your mistress and I have nursed you; 
we have laid your dead away. I don't think anybody 
else can have the same feeling for you that she and I 
have. I have been trying to think out a plan for 
paying wages or a part of the crop that would suit 
us all; but I haven't finished thinking it out. I want 
to know what you think. Now, you can stay just as 
you have been staying and work just as you have been 
working, and we will plan together what is best. Or, 
you can go. My crops must be worked, and I want 
to know what arrangements to make. Ben ! Dick I 
Moses ! Abrani ! line up, everybody out there. As 
you pass this porch, tell me if you mean to stay; you 
needn't promise for longer than this year, you know. 
If you want to go somewhere else, say so — and no hard 
thoughts ! " 

The long line passed. One and all they said: "I 
gwi stay wid you, Marster." A few put it in different 
words. Uncle Andrew, the dean of the body, with 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 185 

wool as white as snow, a widower who went sparking 
every Sunday in my grandfather's coat and my grand- 
father's silk hat, said: "Law, Marster! I ain' got 
nowhar tuh go ef I was gwine ! " Some wiped their 
eyes, and my father had tears in his. 

Next morning, old Uncle Eph, Andrew's mate, was 
missing; his aged wife was in great distress. She 
came to my father reproachfully: "Marster," she 
said, " I wish you wouldn' put all dat foolishness 'bout 
freedom in Eph's hade. He so ole I dunno what gwi 
become uh him 'long de road. When I wake up dis 
mo'nin', he done tied all his close up in his hankercher 
and done lit out." In a few days he returned, the butt 
of the quarters for many a day. " I jes wanter see 
whut it feel lak tuh be free," he said, " an' I wanter to 
go back to Ole Marster's plantation whar I was born. 
It don' look de same dar, an' I done see nuff uh 
freedom." 

Presently my father was making out contracts and 
explaining them over and over; he would sign his name, 
the negro would make his mark, the witnesses sign; 
and the bond for a year's work and wages or part of 
the crop, was complete. At first, contracts had to be 
ratified by a Freedmen's Bureau agent, who charged 
master and servant each fifty cents or more. After one 
of our neighbours told his negroes they were free, they 
all promised to stay, as had ours. Next morning all 
but two were gone. In a few days all returned. The 
Bureau Agent had made them come back. 

Many negroes leaving home fared worse than Uncle 
Eph. After the fall of Richmond, Mr. Hill, who had 
been a high official of the Confederacy, went back to 
his plantation, where he found but three negroes remain- 
ing, the rest having departed for Washington, the negro 
heaven. One of these, a man of seventy, said he must 



1 86 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

go, too. His ex-master could not dissuade him. He 
was comfortably quartered and Mr. Hill told him he 
would be cared for the rest of his life. Nothing would 
do but he must sell his chickens and his little crop of 
tobacco to one of the other negroes and go. Mr. Hill 
gave him provisions for ten days, had the wagon hitched 
up and sent him to Culpeper, where he was to take the 
train. On Culpeper's outskirts was the usual collection 
of negroes, snack-house, bad whiskey, gambling, and 
kindred evils. Here Uncle John stopped. He had 
started with $15 cash. In less than a week his money 
was gone and he was thrown out on the common. 

Mr. Hill, summoned before the Provost-Marshal on 
the charge of having driven Uncle John off, said : " The 
man sitting out there in my buggy can tell you whether 
I did that." The testimony of the black witness was 
conclusive, the Provost dismissed the case. Mr. Hill 
went to the commons. 

Lying in the sun, stone-blind, was Uncle John. He 
raised his head and listened. "Mistuh, fuh Gawd's 
sake, please do suppin fuh mel" "Old man, why arc 
you here ? " " Lemme hear dat voice again I " " Uncle 
John!" "Bless de Lawd, Marster! you done come. 
Marster, a 'oman robbed me uf all I had an' den th'owed 
me out. Fuh Gawd's sake, take me home 1 " "I will 
have you cared for tonight, and tomorrow I will come 
in the wagon for you." "Lawd, Marster, I sho Is 
glad I gwine home ! I kin res' easy in my min', now I 
know I gwine home ! " 

Mr. Hill returned to the Provost: " I shall come or 
send for the old man tomorrow," he said. "Mean- 
while, he must be cared for." The Provost was indif- 
ferent. This was one of many cases. " If you do not 
provide food and shelter for that negro," he was 
sharply assured, " I shall report you to the authorities 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 187 

at Washington." The Provost promised and sent two 
orderlies to attend to the matter. Next morning the 
master was back. The old man was dead. He had 
been put In the scale-house, an open shed. There, 
Instead of In his old home surrounded by friends who 
loved him, Uncle John had breathed his last. 

From many other stories, companions in pathos, I 
choose Mammy Lisbeth's. Her son went with the 
Yankee army. She grieved for him till her mistress* 
heart ached. The mistress returned one day from a 
visit to find Lisbeth much excited. *' Law, Miss, I done 
hyerd f'om my chile 1" "How, Mammy?" "A 
Yankee soldier come by an' I ax 'Im Is he seed my son 
whar he been goin' 'long? An' I tell 'im all 'bout how 
my chile look. An' he say he done been seen 'Im. 
An' I say, ' Law, mister, ain't my chile gwl come home ? ' 
An' he gimme de answer: 'He can't come ef he ain' 
got no money.' An' I answer, 'Law, marster, I got 
a fi'-dollar gol' piece my ole miss dat's done dade gimme 
long time ago. Does you know any safe passin'?' 
An' he answer, jes ez kin', how he gwine datter way 
hisse'f, an' he'll kyar it. I run In de house an' got dat 
fi'-dollar gol' piece an' gi' to 'im. An' now my chile's 
comin' home, Missl my chile's comin' home! He say, 
* In 'bout two weeks, you go to de kyars evvy day an' 
look fuh Im.' " Her mistress had not the heart to tell 
her the man had robbed her. Never before had a white 
man robbed her; It was second nature to trust the white 
face. 

"It is heart-breaking," her mistress wrote, "to see 
how she watches for him. She Is at the depot every 
day, scanning the face of every coloured passenger 
getting off. I've been to the Bureau making inquiries. 
The Agent says if he could catch the rascal, the robber, 
he would string him up by the thumbs, but her descrip- 



i88 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tion fits any strolling private. He says : * Any woman 
who would trust a stranger so with her money deserves 
to be fooled. I wouldn't trouble about it, Madam 1 * 
Yankees do not understand our coloured people and 
u9. How can I help being troubled by anything that 
troubles Mammy Lisbeth? " 

Here is another old letter: "Cousin mine: I came 
home from school a few days ago. Railroads all 
broken up and it took several days to make the journey 
in the carriage, stopping over-night along the route. 
At most houses, there was hardly anything to offer but 
shelter, but hospitality was perfect. Only cornbread 
and sassafras tea at one place; no servants to render 
attention ; silver gone ; f amliy portraits punctured with 
bayonets; furniture and mirrors broken. Reaching 
home, found everything strange because of great change 
in domestic regime. Our cook, who has reigned in our 
kitchen for thirty years, Is In Richmond, coining money 
out of a restaurant. Most of our servants have gone 
to the city. Our old butler and Mammy abide. I 
think It would have killed me had Mammy gone 1 

" I cannot tell you how It oppressed me to miss the 
familiar black faces I have loved all my life, and to 
feel that our negroes cared so little for us, and left 
at the first Invitation. I have something strange to tell 
you. Mammy has been free since before I was born. 
I never knew till now. I was utterly wretched, and 
exclaimed: 'Well, Mammy, I reckon you'll go too!' 
She took It as a deadly Insult; I had to humble myself. 
While she was mad, the secret burst out: *Ef I'd 
wanted to go, I could ha' gone long time ago. No 
Yankees sot me free I My marster sot me free.' She 
showed me her manumission papers In grandfather's 
hand, which she has worn for I don't know how long, 
in a little oil-silk bag around her neck, never caring to 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 189 

use them. Domestic cares are making me gray 1 But 
I get some fun trying to do things I never did before, 
while Mammy scolds me for 'demeaning' myself." 
There was honour in the "gritty" way the Southern 
housewife adapted herself to the situation, humour In 
the way spoiled maidens played the part of milkmaid 
or of Bridget. 

"Do you know how to make llghtbread?" one of 
our friends Inquired, and proceeded to brag of her 
new accomplishments, adding: "I had never gotten 
a meal in my life until the morning after the Yankees 
passed, when I woke to find not a single servant on the 
place. There was a lone cow left. I essayed to milk 
her, but retired In dire confusion. I couldn't make 
the milk go In the pail to save my life ! It squirted In 
my face and eyes and all over my hair. The cow 
switched her tail around and cut my countenance, made 
demonstrations with her hind feet, and I retired. One 
of my daughters sat on the milking-stool and milked 
away as If she had been born to it." 

"The first meal I got," another friend wrote, "my 
sons cooked. They learned how In the army. I thought 
the house was coming down while they were beating the 
biscuit I They drove me from the kitchen. * We don't 
hate the Yankees for thrashing us,' they said, 'but God 
knows we hate them for turning our women Into hewers 
of wood and drawers of water.' Now, I'm as good a 
cook as my boys. Can do everything domestic except 
kill a chicken. I turn the chicken loose every time." 

" I write In a merry vein," was another recital, 
"because it Is no good to write In any other. But I 
have the heart-break over things. I see this big plan- 
tation, once so beautifully kept up, going to rack and 
ruin. I see the negroes I trained so carefully deterio- 
rating every day. We suffer from theft, are humiliated 



I90 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

by impertinence; and cannot help ourselves. Negroes 
call upon me daily for services that I, in Christian duty, 
must render whether I am able or not. And I cannot 
call upon them for one thing but I must pay twice 
over — and I have nothing to pay with. This is the first 
rule in their lesson of freedom — to get all they can out 
of white folks and give as little as possible in return." 

Letters teemed with experiences like this: "We 
went to sleep one night with a plantation full of negroes, 
and woke to find not one on the place — every servant 
gone to Sherman in Atlanta. Negroes are camped out all 
around that city. We had thought there was a strong 
bond of affection on their side as well as ours! We 
have ministered to them in sickness, infancy, and age. 
But poor creatures I they don't know what freedom is, 
and they are crazy. They think it the opening of the 
door of Heaven. Some put me in mind of birds born 
and raised in a cage and suddenly turned loose and 
helpless ; others, of hawks, minks and weasels, released 
to do mischief. 

"We heard that there was much suffering in the 
camps; presently our negroes were all back, some ill 
from exposure. Maum Lucindy sent word for us to 
send for her, she was sick. Without a vehicle or team 
on the place, it looked like an impossible proposition, 
but my little boys patched up the relics of an old cart, 
borrowed the only steer in the neighbourhood, and got 
Maum Lucindy back. The raiders swept us clean of 
everything. We are unable to feed ourselves. How 
we shall feed and clothe the negroes when we cannot 
make them work, I do not know." 

My cousin, Mrs. Meredith, of Brunswick", Virginia, 
congratulated herself, when only one of her servants 
deserted his post to join Sheridan's trail of camp- 
followers. A week after Simeon's departure, she woke 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 191 

one morning to discover that six women had decamped, 
one leaving her two httle children in her cabin from 
which came pitiful wails of " Mammy ! " " Mammy 1 " 
Simeon had come in the night, and related of Black's 
and White's (now Blackstone) where a garrison had 
been established, that calico dresses were as plentiful 
as leaves on trees and that coloured women were parad- 
ing the streets with white soldiers for beaux. My 
cousin, Mrs. White, said a whole wagon-load of negro 
women passed her house going to Blackstone, and that 
one of them insisted upon presenting her with a four- 
year-old child, declaring it too much trouble. It was 
not an unknown thing for negro mothers to leave their 
children along the roadsides. 

Blackstone drew recruits until there was just one 
woman-servant remaining with the Merediths. Why 
she stayed was a mystery, but as she was " the only 
pebble on the beach," everything was done to make 
home attractive. One day she asked permission (why, 
could not be imagined) to go visiting. She did not 
return. Shortly, Captain Meredith was haled before 
the Freedmen's Bureau at Black's and White's to answer 
the charge of thrashing Viny. Marched into court, he 
took a chair. " Get up," said the Bureau Agent, " and 
give the lady a seat." He rose, and Viny dropped into 
it. She was shamefaced and brazen by turns; finally, 
burst into tears and begged "Mars Tawm's" pardon, 
saying she had brought the charge because she had 
"no 'scuse for leavin'" and had to invent one; 
"newer knowed Mars Tawm was gwi be brung in cote 
'bout it." 

The early stirrings of the social equality problem 
were curious. Adventurous Aunt Susan tried the experi- 
ment of "eatin' wid white folks." She was bursting 
to tell us about It, yet loath to reveal her degradation — 



192 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

" White folks dat'll eat wid me ain't fitten fuh me to 
eat wId," being the negro position. "But dese folks 
was rale quality, Miss," Susan said when murder was 
out. "I kinder skittish when dee fus' ax me to set 
down wId 'em. I couldn' eat na'er mouthful wid white 
folks a-lookin' at me an' a rale nice white gal handin' 
vlttles. An' presen'ly, mum, ef I didn' see dat white 
gal settin' in de kitchen eatin' her vittles by herse'f. 
Rale nice white gall I say, 'Huccum you didn' eat 
wid tur white folks?' She say, ' I de servant.' " 

Mrs. Betts, of Halifax ( Va.) , was in her kitchen, her 
cook, who was in her debt, having failed to put in 
an appearance. The cook's husband approached the 
verandah and requested a dollar. "Where is Jane?" 
he was asked. "Why hasn't she been here to do her 
work ? " " She are keepin' parlour." " What is that ? " 
" Settin' up in de house hol'in' her ban's. De Civilise 
Bill done been fulfill an' niggers an' white folks jes 
alike now." 

Coloured applicant for menial position would say to 
the door-opener : " Tell dat white 'oman in dar a cuUud 
lady out here want to hire." " De cullud lady " was 
capricious. My sister in Atlanta engaged one for every 
day in one month. In fact, engaged more than that 
average, engaged every one applying, hoping if ten 
promised to come in time to get breakfast, one might 
appear. 

With two hundred black trial justices. South Carolina 
had more than her share of funny happenings, as of 
tragic. A gentleman who had to appear before some 
tribunal, wrote us: "Whom do you suppose I found 
in the seat of law? Pete, my erstwhile stable-boy. He 
does not know A from Z, had not the faintest idea of 
what was to be done. 'Mars Charles,' he said, 'you 
jes fix 'tup, please, sub. You jes write down whut you 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 193 

think orter be wroted, an' I'll put my mark anywhar 
you tell me.' " 

Into a store in Wilmington sauntered a sable alder- 
man whom the merchant had known from boyhood as 
"Sam." "What's the matter with Sam?" the mer- 
chant asked as Sam stalked out. Soon, Sam stalked 
back. " Suh, you didn' treat me wid proper respecks." 
"How, Sam?" "You called me 'Sam,' which my 
name is Mr. Gary." "You're a d — d fool! There's 
the door I " Gary had the merchant up in the mayor's 
court. " What's the trouble ? " asked the mayor. " Dis 
man consulted me," "You ought to feel flattered! 
What did he do to you ? " " He called me ' Sam,' suh." 
"Ain't that your name?" "My name's Mr. Gary." 
" Ain't it Sam, too ? " " Yessuh, but—" " Well, there 
ain't any law to compel a man to call another ' Mister.' 
Case dismissed." " Dar gwi be a law 'bout dat," mut- 
tered Sam. 

Washington was the place of miracles. When Uncle 
Peter went there, some tricksters told him his wool 
could be made straight and his colour changed — " Said 
dee could make it jes lak white folks' ha'r," he informed 
his mistress mournfully, when he had paid the price — 
nearly his entire capital — and returned home with 
flaming red wool. His wife did not know him, or 
pretended not to, and drove him out of the house. He 
appealed to his mistress and she made Manda behave 
herself. 

" Ole Miss," asked my mother's little handmaiden, 
"now, I'se free, is I gwi tu'n white lak white folks?" 
" You must not be ashamed of the skin God gave you, 
Patsy," said her mistress kindly. "Your skin is all 
right." "But I druther be white, Ole Miss." And 
there was something pathetic in the aspiration. 

Some of the older and more intelligent blacks held 



196 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

which they had seemed immune. A consumptive of 
the race was rarely heard of before freedom. After 
freedom, they began to die of pulmonary complaints. 
There were frequent epidemics of typhoid fever, 
quarters not being well kept. "The race is dying 
out," said prophets. Negroes began to grow mad. 
An insane negro was rarely heard of during slav- 
ery. Regular hours, regular work, chiefly out of 
doors, sobriety, freedom from care and responsi- 
bility, had kept the negro singularly exempt from 
insanity and various other afflictions that curse the white. 
Big lunatic asylums established for negroes soon after 
the war and their continual enlargement tell their own 
story.* 

Freedom broke up families. Under stress of tempta- 
tion, the young and strong deserted the aged, the feeble, 
the children, leaving these to shift for themselves or 
to remain a burden upon a master or mistress themselves 
impoverished and, perhaps, old and infirm. 

In the face of so much distraction, demoralisation and 
disorder, the example of those negroes who were not 
affected by it shines out with greater clearness as witness 
for the best that is in the race. Thousands stood stead- 
fastly to their posts, superior to temptations which might 
have shaken white people, performing their duties faith- 
fully, caring for their children, sick and aged, shirking 
no debt of love and gratitude to past owners. Some 
negroes still live in families for which their ancestors 
worked, the bond of centuries never having been broken. 

When this is true, the tie between white and black is 
yet strong, sweet and tender, like the tie of blood. The 
venerable "uncles" and "aunties" with their courtly 



* Syphilitic diseases, from which under slavery negroes were' 
nearly exempt, combine with tuberculosis to undermine racial health. 




MRS. ANDREW PICKENS CALHOUN 

Daughter of General Duff Green, of Georgia, and daughter-in-law 

of John C. Calhoun, the statesman, of South Carolina. 

This picture was taken when Mrs. Calhoun was 71 years of age. 



THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 197 

manners, their good warm hearts, their love for the 
whites, are swiftly passing away, and their like will not 
be seen again. They were America's black pearl; and 
America had as good reason to be proud of her faithful 
and efficient serving-class as of her Anglo-Saxons. 
They were needed ; they filled an honourable and worthy 
place and filled it well. 

This is not to justify slavery. Slavery was forced 
upon this country over Colonial protests, particularly 
from Southern sections fearing negroisation of terri- 
tory; the slave-trade was profitable to the English 
Crown; our forefathers, coming into independence, 
faced a problem of awful magnitude in the light of 
Santo Domingo horrors; New England's slave-ships 
and Eli Whitney's cotton-gin complicated it; it is 
curious to read in the proceedings of the Sixth Con- 
gress how Mr. John Brown, of Rhode Island, urged 
that this Nation should not be deprived of a right, 
enjoyed by every civilised country, of bringing slaves 
from Africa * — particularly as transference to a Chris- 
tian land was a benefit to Africans, a belief held by 
many who believed that the Bible sanctioned slavery. 
Through kindliness of temperament on both sides and 
the clan feeling fostered by the old plantation life of 
the South, the white man and the negro made the best 
they could of an evil thing. But the world has now 
well learned that a superior race cannot afford to take an 
inferior into such close company as slavery implies. For 
the service of the bond-slave the master ever pays to the 
uttermost in things precious as service, imparting refine- 
ments, ideals, standards, morals, manners, graces; in the 
end he pays that which he considers more precious than 
service ; he pays his blood, and In more ways than one. 

* See Susan Pendleton Lee's " History of Virginia." 



BACK TO VOODOOISM 



CHAPTER XVII 

Back to Voodooism 

The average master and mistress of the old South were 
missionaries without the name. Religious instruction 
was a feature of the negro quarters on the Southern 
plantation — the social settlements for Africans in 
America. 

Masters and mistresses, if themselves religious, usually 
held Sabbath services and Sunday schools for blacks. 
Some delegated this task, employing preachers and 
teachers. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was the first 
rice planter to introduce systematic religious instruction 
among negroes on the Santee, influenced thereto by 
Bishop Capers. He subscribed to the Methodist Epis- 
copal Mission for them, and a minister came every 
week to catechise the children and every Sabbath to 
preach at the negro church which Mr. Pinckney, with 
the assistance of his neighbours, established for the 
blacks on his own and neighbouring plantations. Soon 
fifty chapels on his model sprang up along the seaboard. 
In the Methodist churchyard in Columbia, a modest 
monument marks the grave of Bishop Capers, " Founder 
of the Mission to the Slaves." Nearby sleeps Rev. 
William Martin, who was a distinguished preacher to 
whites and a faithful missionary to blacks. In Zion 
Presbyterian Church, Charleston, built largely through 
the efforts of Mr. Robert Adger, no less a preacher 
than Rev. Dr. Girardeau ministered to negroes. The 
South entrusted the spiritual care of her negroes to her 
best and ablest, and what she did for them is inter- 

201 



202 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

woven with all her history. You will hear to-day how 
the great clock on top of the church on Mr. Plowden 
Weston's plantation kept time for plantations up and 
down the Waccamaw. In that chapel, Rev. Mr. 
Glenrie and an English catechist diligently taught the 
blacks. After Sherman's visit to Columbia, Trinity 
(Episcopal) Church had no Communion service; the 
sacred vessels of precious metals belonging to the negro 
chapel on the Hampton place were borrowed for 
Trinity's white congregation. 

The rule where negroes were not so numerous as to 
require separate churches was for both races to worship 
in one building. Slavery usages were modelled on 
manorial customs In England, where a section of church 
or chapel Is set apart for the peasantry, another for 
gentry and nobility. The gallery, or some other sec- 
tion of our churches, was reserved for servants, who 
thus had the same religious teaching we had; there 
being more of them, they were often In larger evidence 
than whites at worship. After whites communed, they 
received the Sacrament from the same hands at the same 
altar. Their names were on our church rolls. Our 
pastors often officiated at their funerals; sometimes an 
old " exhorter " of their own colour did this; sometimes 
our pastors married them, but this ceremony was not 
Infrequently performed by their masters. 

The Old African Church, of Richmond, was once 
that city's largest auditorium. In It great meetings 
were held by whites, and famous speakers and artists 
(Adellna PattI for one) were heard. One of Mr. 
Davis' last addresses as President was made there. The 
regular congregation was black and their pastor was 
Rev. Robert Ryland, D. D., President of Richmond 
College; "Brother Ryland," they called him. He 
taught them with utmost conscientiousness; they loved 



BACK TO VOODOOISM 203 

him and he them. When called upon for the marriage 
ceremony, he would go to the home of their owners, 
and marry them in the "white folks' house" or on the 
lawn before a company of whites and blacks. Then, 
as fee, a large iced cake would be presented to him by a 
groomsman with great pomp. 

After the war, the old church was pulled down, and 
a new one erected by the negroes with assistance of 
whites North and South. Then they wrote Dr. Ryland, 
who had gone to Kentucky, asking him to return and 
dedicate it. He answered affectionately, saying he 
appreciated greatly this evidence of their regard and 
that nothing would give him greater pleasure, but he 
was too poor to come ; he would be with them in spirit. 
They replied that the question of expense was none of 
his business; it was theirs. He wrote that they must 
apply the sum thus set aside to current expenses, to meet 
which it would be needed. They answered that they 
would be hurt if he did not come; they wanted no one 
else to dedicate their church. So he came, stopping at 
Mr. Maury's. 

He was greatly touched when he met his old friends, 
the congregation receiving him standing. So much 
feeling was displayed on their part, such deep emo- 
tion experienced on his, that he had to retire to the 
study before he could command himself sufficiently to 
preach. 

In religious life, after the war, the negro's and 
the white man's path parted quickly. Negro gal- 
leries in white churches soon stood empty. Negroes 
were being taught that they ought to sit cheek by jowl 
in the same pews with whites or stay away from white 
churches. 

With freedom, the negro, en masse, relapsed promptly 
into the voodooism of Africa. Emotional extrava- 



204 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ganzas, which for the sake of his health and sanity, 
if for nothing else, had been held in check by his 
owners, were Indulged without restraint. It was as 
if a force long repressed burst forth. " Moans," 
"shouts" and "trance meetings" could be heard for 
miles. It was weird. I have sat many a night in the 
window of our house on the big plantation and listened 
to shouting, jumping, stamping, dancing, in a cabin 
over a mile distant; in the gray dawn, negroes would 
come creeping back, exhausted, and unfit for duty. 

In some localities, devil-dancing, as imported from 
Africa centuries ago, still continues. I have heard of 
one place in South Carolina where worshippers throw 
the trance-smitten into a creek, as the only measure 
sufficiently heroic to bring them out of coma. Devil- 
worship was rife in Louisiana just after the war. 

One of my negro friends tells me : " Soon atter de 
war, dar wuz a trance-meetin' in dis neighbourhood dat 
lasted a week. De cook at marster's would git a answer 
jes befo' dinner dat ef he didn' bring a part uv evvy- 
thing he cooked to de meetin', ' de Lawd would snatch 
de breath outen his body.* He brung It. Young gals 
dee'd be layin' 'roun' in trances. A gal would come to 
meetin' w'arin' a jacket a white lady gin 'er. One uh 
de gals in a trance would say : * De Lawd say if sich 
an' sich a one don' pull dat jacket off, he gwi snatch de 
breath out dar body.' One ole man broke dat meetin' 
up. Two uv his gran'sons was lyin' out in a trance. 
He come down dar, wid a han'-full uh hickory switches 
an' laid de licks on dem gran'chillun. Evvybody took 
out an' run. Dat broke de meetin' up. 

" Endurin' slavery, dar marsters wouldn' 'low niggers 
tub do all dat foolishness. When freedom come, dee 
lis'n to bad advice an' lef de white folks' chu'ches an' 
go to doin' all sorts uh nawnsense. Now dee done 



BACK TO VOODOOISM 205 

learnt better again. Dee goln' back sorter to de white 
folks' chu-ches. Heap uh Pristopals lak dar use tub 
be. In Furginny, Bishop Randolph come 'roun' an' 
confirm all our classes. An' de Baptis'es dee talk 'bout 
takin' de cullud Baptis'es under dar watch-keer. An' 
all our folks dee done learnt heap better an' all what 
I been tellin' you. I don' want you tub put dat in no 
book lessen you say we-all done improved." 

Southern men who stand at the head of educational 
movements for negroes, state that they have advanced 
greatly in a religious sense, their own educated ministry 
contributing to this end. Among those old half-voodoo 
shouters and dreamers of dreams were negroes of 
exalted Christian character and true piety, and, indus- 
trially, of far more worth to society than the average 
educated product. I have known sensible negroes who 
believed that they "travelled" to heaven and to hell.* 

It has been urged that darkness would have been 
quickly turned to light had Southern masters and mis- 
tresses performed their full duty in the spiritual instruc- 
tion of their slaves. To change the fibre of a race is 
not a thing quickly done even where undivided and 
intense effort is bent in this direction. The negro, as 
he came here from Africa, changed much more quickly 
for the better in every respect than under freedom he 
could have done. It has been charged that we had laws 
against teaching negroes to read. I never heard of 
them until after the war. All of us tried to teach 
darkeys to read, and nothing was ever done to anybody 



* Among Southerners assuring me that education is advancing 
negroes, I may mention ex-Mayor Ellyson, of Richmond, and Judge 
Watkins, of Farmville, who credit educated negro clergy with such 
moral improvement in the race. Both gentlemen were deeply inter- 
ested in the educational work at Petersburg. Said Mayor Ellyson: 
" We take equal care in selecting teachers for both races." 



2o6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

about It. If there were such laws, we paid no atten- 
tion to them, and they were framed for the negroes' 
and our protection against fanatics.* 

I have treated this subject to show the swing back 
to savagery the instant the master-hand was removed; 
one cause of demoralisation in field and kitchen; the 
superstitious, volatile, inflammable material upon which 
political sharpers played without scruple. 



* Such laws were adopted after 1830 in Alabama, Georgia and 
South Carolina, when secret agents of the aboUitionists were spread- 
ing incendiary literature. It is a fact, though not generally under- 
stood, that abolition extremists arrested several emancipation move- 
ments in the South ; whites dared not release to the guidance of 
fanatics a mass of semi-savages in whose minds doctrines of insur- 
rection had been sown. See recent articles on Slavery in the " Con- 
federate Veteran " ; " The Gospel to the Slaves " ; " An Inquiry into 
the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States ; with an Historical 
Sketch of Slavery," by Thomas R. R. Cobb; and Southern histories 
of the Southern States. 



THE FREEDMEN^S BUREAU 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Freedmen's Bureau 

Federal authorities had a terrific problem to deal with 
in four millions of slaves suddenly let loose. Military 
commanders found themselves between the devil and 
the deep sea. 

Varied instructions were given to bring order out 
of chaos. " Freedmen that will use any disrespectful 
language to their former masters will be severely pun- 
ished," is part of a ukase issued by Captain Nunan, at 
Milledgeville, in fervent if distracted effort for the 
general weal. By action if not by order, some others 
settled the matter this way: " Former masters that will 
use any disrespectful language to their former slaves 
will be severely punished"; as witness the case where a 
venerable lady, bearing in her own and that of her 
husband two of the proudest names in her State, was 
marched through the streets to answer before a military 
tribunal the charge of having used offensive language 
to her cook. 

With hordes of negroes pilfering and pillaging, new 
rulers had an elephant on their hands. No vagrant 
laws enacted by Southern Legislatures in 1865-6 sur- 
passed in severity many of the early military mandates 
with penalties for infraction. The strongest argument 
in palliation of the reconstruction acts is found in these 
laws which were construed into an attempt to re-enslave 
the negro. The South had no vagrant class before the 
war and was provided with no laws to meet conditions 
of vagrancy which followed emancipation with over- 
whelming force. 

209 



2IO DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Comparing these laws with New England's, we find 
that in many respects the former were modelled on the 
latter, from which the words "ball and chain," "master 
and mistress" and the apprentice system, which Mr. 
Blaine declared so heinous, might well have been bor- 
rowed, though New England never faced so grave a 
vagrancy problem as that which confronted the South. 

Negroes flocked to cities, thick as blackbirds. Fed- 
eral commanders issued orders: "Keep negroes from 
the cities." " The Government is feeding too many 
idlers." " Make them stay on the plantations." 
" Impress upon them the necessity of making a crop, or 
famine is imminent throughout the South." " Do not 
let the young and able-bodied desert their children, sick, 
and aged." As well call to order the wild things of 
the woods! In various places something like the old 
" patter-roller " system of slavery was adopted by the 
Federals, wandering negroes being required to show 
passes from employers, saying why they were abroad. 

General Schofield's Code for the Government of 
Freedmen in North Carolina (May, 1865) says: 
" Former masters are constituted guardians of minors 
in the absence of parents or other near relatives 
capable of supporting them." The Radicals made 
great capital out of a similar provision in Southern 
vagrancy laws. 

Accounts of confusion worse confounded wrung this 
from the " New York Times " (May 17, 1865): "The 
horse-stealing, lemonade and cake-vending phase of 
freedom is destined to brief existence. The negro mis- 
understands the motives which made the most laborious, 
hard-working people on the face of the globe clamour 
for his emancipation. You are free, Sambo, but you 
must work. Be virtuous, too, O Dinah! 'Whew! 
Gor Almighty ! bress my soul ! ' " 



THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU 211 

The " Chicago Times " (July 7, 1865) gives a West- 
ern view: "There is chance in this country for philan- 
thropy, a good opening for abolitionists. It is to 
relieve twenty-eight millions of whites held in cruel 
bondage by four million blacks, a bondage which 
retards our growth, distracts our thoughts, absorbs our 
efforts, drives us to war, ruptures our government, dis- 
turbs our tranquillity, and threatens direfully our future. 
There never was such a race of slaves as we; there 
never was another people ground so completely in the 
dust as this nation. Our negro masters crack their 
whips over our legislators and our religion." 

The Freedmen's Bureau was created March 3, 1865, 
for the care and supervision of negroes in Federal lines. 
Branches were rapidly established throughout the South 
and invested with almost unlimited powers in matters 
concerning freedmen. An agency's efficiency depended 
upon the agent's personality. If he were discreet and 
self-respecting, its influence was wholesome; if he were 
the reverse, it was a curse. If he were inclined to pecu- 
late, the agency gave opportunity; if he were cruel — 
well, negroes who were hung up by the thumbs, or well 
annointed with molasses and tied out where flies could 
find them had opinions. 

I recall two stories which show how wide a diver- 
gence there might be between the operations of two 
stations. A planter went to the agent in his vicinity 
and said: " Captain, I don't know what to do with the 
darkeys on my place. They will not work, and are 
committing depredations on myself and neighbours." 
The agent went out and addressed the negroes : ** Men, 
what makes you think you can live without work ? The 
Government is not going to support any people in Idle- 
ness on account of their complexions. I shall not issue 
food to another of you. I have charged this planter 



212 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

to bring before me any case of stealing. If you stay 
on this plantation, you are to work for the owner." 

In a week, the planter reported that they still refused 
to labour or to leave; property was disappearing, 
wanton damage was being done; but It was impossible 
to spot thieves and vandals. The agent, a man of war, 
went up in a hurry, and his language made the air blue 1 
" If I come again," was his parting salutation, " I'll 
bring my cannon, and If you don't hoe, plow, or do what- 
ever Is required, I'll blow you all to pieces!" They 
went to work. 

A gentleman of Fauquier tells me: "When I got 
home from prison, July, 1865, I found good feelings 
existing between whites and their former slaves; every- 
thing was going on as before the war except that negroes 
were free and received wages. After a while there came 
down a Bureau Agent who declared all contracts null 
and void and that no negro should work for a white 
except under contract written and approved by him. 
This demoralised the negroes and engendered distrust 
of whites." 

** If a large planter was making contracts," I heard 
Mr. Martin, of the Tennessee Legislature, relate, " the 
agent would intermeddle. I had to make all mine in 
the presence of one. These agents had to be bribed 
to do a white man justice, A negro would not readily 
get into trouble with a gentleman of means and position 
when he would make short work of shooting a poor 
white. Yet the former had owned slaves and the latter 
had not." 

Planters, making contracts, might have to journey 
from remote points (sometimes a distance of fifty 
miles over bad roads), wherever a Bureau was located, 
whites and blacks suffering expense, and loss of time. 
Both had to fee the agent. A contract binding on the 



THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU 213 

white was not binding on the negro, who was irrespon- 
sible. If the Bureau wrought much mischief, it also 
wrought good, for there were some whites ready to take 
advantage of the negro's ignorance in driving hard 
bargains with him; sorrowfully be it said, if able to 
tip the agent, they would usually be able to drive the 
hard bargain. 

After examination for the Government into Bureau 
operations, Generals Fullerton and Steedman reported, 
May, 1866: " Negroes regard the Bureau as an indica- 
tion that people of the North look upon the whites here 
as their natural enemies, which is calculated to excite 
suspicion and bad feeling. Only the worthless and idle 
ask interference, the industrious do not apply. The 
effect produced by a certain class of agents, is bitterness 
and antagonism between whites and freedmen, a grow- 
ing prejudice on the part of planters to the Government 
and expectations on the part of freedmen that can never 
be realised. Where there has been no such interfer- 
ence or bad advice given, there is a growing feeling of 
kindness between races and good order and harmony 
prevail." They condemned the " arbitrary, unneces- 
sary and offensive interference by the agents with the 
relations of the Southern planters and their freedmen." 

General Grant had reported (Dec. 18, 1865) ^^ 
President Johnson, after a Southern tour: " The belief 
widely spread among freedmen that the lands of former 
owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, 
has come through agents of this Bureau. This belief 
is seriously interfering with the willingness of the freed- 
men to make contracts." 

Whether agents originated or simply winked at the 
red, white and blue stick enterprise, I am unable to say. 
Into a neighborhood would come strangers from the 
North, seeking private interviews with negroes possess- 



214 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ing a little cash or having access to somebody else's cash; 
to these would be shown, with pledges of secrecy, pack- 
ages of red, white and blue sticks, four to each package. 
" Get up before light on such a date, plant a stick at 
the four corners of any piece of land not over a mile 
square, and the land Is yours. Be wary, or the rebels 
will get ahead of you." 

Packages were five dollars each. One gentleman 
found a set for which he had lent part of the purchase 
money planted on his land. If a negro had not the 
whole sum, the seller would " trust" him for the balance 
till he ''should come Into possession of the land." 

Generals Fullerton and Steedman advised discontin- 
uance of the Bureau in Virginia ; and some similar 
recommendation must have accompanied the report for 
Florida and the Carolinas which contained such revela- 
tions as this about the Trent River Settlement, where 
4,000 blacks lived In " deplorable condition " under the 
superlntendency of Rev. Mr. FItz, formerly U. S. A. 
Chaplain. "Four Intelligent Northern ladies," teach- 
ing school in the Settlement, witnessed the harsh treat- 
ment of negroes by Mr. FItz, such as suspension by the 
thumbs for hours ; Imprisonment of children for playing 
on the Sabbath; making negroes pay for huts; taxing 
them; turning them out on the streets. Interesting 
statements were given In regard to the "planting 
officials" who impressed negroes to work lands under 
such overseers as few Southern masters (outside of 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin") would have permitted to drive 
negroes they owned, the officials reaping profits. 

The Bureau had ways of making whites know their 
place. One could gather a book of stories like this, 
told me recently by an aged lady, whose name I can 
give to any one entitled to ask: " Captain B., of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, was a very hard man. He took up 



THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU 215 

farms around and put negroes on them. We had a 
large place; he held that over a year and everything was 
destroyed. Saturdays, Captain B. would send many 
negroes out there — and it was pandemonium ! My hus- 
band was in prison. My father was eighty; he would 
not complain, but I would. We went to the Bureau 
repeatedly about the outrages. Captain B. was obse- 
quious, offered father wine; but he did not stop the 
outrages. Once he asked: 'Have you not had any 
remuneration for your place?' * No,' I said, 'and we 
are not asking it. We only beg you to make the negroes 
you send out there behave decently.' He said he would 
do anything for us, but did nothing; at last, I went 
direct to General Stoneman, and he helped us." 

Not long after Generals Grant's, Fullerton's, and 
Steedman's reports. Congress enlarged the powers of 
the Bureau. Coincident with this, the negro became a 
voter, the Bureau a political machine, the agent a candi- 
date. The Bureau had been active in securing negro 
enfranchisement. It was natural that ambitious agents 
should send hair-raising stories North of the South- 
erner's guile, cruelty and injustice, and touching ones of 
the negro's heavenly-mindedness In general and of his 
fitness to be an elector and law-maker in particular; all 
proving the propriety and necessity of his possession of 
the ballot for self-protection and defense. 

In signal Instances, the Bureau became the negro's 
protector In crime, as when its officials demanded at one 
time of Governor Throckmorton, of Texas, pardon and 
release of two hundred and twenty-seven negroes from 
the penitentiary, some of whom had been confined for 
burglary, arsop, rape, murder. 

The Bureau did not In the end escape condemnation 
from those for whom It was created, and who, on acqui- 
sition of the ballot, became its "spoiled darlings." 



2i6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

" De ossifers eat up all de niggers' rations, steal all dey 
money, w'ar all dey Sunday clo'se," said Hodges, of 
Princess Anne, in Virginia's Black and Tan Convention. 
The failure of the Freedmen's Savings Bank was a 
scandal costing pain and humiliation to all honest 
Northerners connected with the institution, and many 
a negro his little hoard and his disposition to accumulate. 

It is not fair to overlook benefits conferred by the 
Bureau because It failed to perform the one great and 
fine task It might have accomplished, as the freedman's 
first monitor. In teaching him that freedom enlarges 
responsibility and brings no exemption from toil. If 
much harm, great good was also done In distribution of 
Government rations. In which whites sometimes received 
share with blacks. In numbers of places, both races 
found the agent a sturdy friend and wise counsellor.* 

No one who knows General O. O. Howard, who was 
Commissioner, can, I think, doubt the sincerity and 
purity of purpose which animated him and scores of 
his subordinates. From the start, the Bureau must 
have been a difficult organization to handle; once the 
negro entered Into count as a possible or actual political 
factor, the combined wisdom of Solomon and Moses 
could not have made Its administration a success nor 
fulfilled the Government's benign Intention in creating It. 



* See University of Iowa Studies, " Freedmen's Bureau," by Paul 
Skeels Pierce. 



PRISONER OF FORTRESS MONROE 



CHAPTER XIX 

The Prisoner of Fortress Monroe 

An extract from a letter by Mrs. Robert E. Lee to 
Miss Mason, from Derwent, September lo, 1865, may 
interest my readers: " I have just received, dear Miss 
Em, a long letter from Mrs. Davis in reply to one of 
mine. She was in Augusta, Ga. ; says she is confined 
to that State. She has sent her children to kindred in 
Canada. Says she knows nothing whatever of her hus- 
band, except what she has seen in the papers. Says any 
letter sent her under care of Mr. Schley will reach her 
safely. She writes very sadly, as she well may, for I 
know of no one so much to be pitied. . . . She 
represents a most uncomfortable state of affairs in 
Augusta. No one, white or black, can be out after 
ten o'clock at night without a pass. . . . We must 
wait God's time to raise us up again. That will be the 
best time." In a later letter, Mrs. Lee said : " I cannot 
help feeling uneasy about Mr. Davis. May God pro- 
tect him, and grant him deliverance!" 

The whole South was anxious about Mr. Davis. 
Those who had come in close touch with him felt a 
peculiar sympathy for him inspired by a side of his 
character not generally recognized, as his manner often 
conveyed an impression of coldness and sternness. 
Under his reserve, was an almost feminine tenderness 
revealed in many stories his close friends tell. Thus: 
One night. Judge Minor, to see the President on busi- 
ness of state, sat with him in the room of the "White 
House " where the telegraph wire came in at the window 

219 



220 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

(now, Alabama Room in the Confederate Museum), 
when in stumbles little Joe, in night-gown, saying: 
'* Papa, I want to say my prayers." The President, 
caressing his child, despatched a message, answered 
Judge Minor's immediate question, and saying, " Excuse 
me a moment," led his little one's devotions. He was 
of wide reading and wonderful memory, yet was igno- 
rant of " Mother Goose " until he heard his children 
babbling the jingles. Mrs. Davis brought " Babes in 
the Wood " to his notice. He suffered from insomnia 
after visits to the hospitals; his wife would try to read 
him to sleep. One night she picked up the "Babes" 
as the one thing at hand, and was astonished to find the 
poem unknown to him; at the children's desertion he 
rose, exclaiming : " Was there no one to help those poor 
tender babies? The thought is agonizing!" A part 
of his childhood was spent In a Kentucky monastery, 
where the good monks did not bethink themselves to 
teach him nursery rhymes. 

There was the story of the soldier's widow, to answer 
whose call the President left his breakfast unfinished. 
Mrs. Davis found him trying to comfort and to Induce 
her to partake of a tray of delicacies sent In by his order. 
She was trying to find her husband's body, and feared 
that as he was a poor private due aid might not be 
given her; she had been certain that she would receive 
scant attention from the Chief Magistrate. But 
he was telling her that the country's strength and 
protection lay In her private soldier. " My father. 
Madam, was a private in the Revolution, and I am 
more proud of what he did for his country than If 
he had been an officer expecting the world's praise. 
Tell your sorrows to my wife. She will take you In 
her carriage wherever you wish to go, and aid you all 



THE PRISONER 221 

Dr. Craven, Mr. Davis' Federal physician at Fortress 
Monroe, testifies in his book to his patient's unusual 
depth and quickness of sympathy: "Despite a certain 
exterior cynicism of manner, no patient ever crossed my 
path who, suffering so much himself, appeared to feel 
so warmly and tenderly for others." In Confederate 
hospitals, he had not limited pity to wearers of the gray. 
A " White House " guest told me of his robbing his 
scant table more than once for a sick Federal who had 
served with him in Mexico. Another laughingly 
remarked : " I don't see how he managed to rob his 
table of a delicacy. When I sat down to it, It had none 
to spare. Yet certainly he might have kept a bountiful 
board, for Government stores were accessible to Gov- 
ernment officials, and the President might have had first 
choice in purchasing blockade goods. But the simplicity 
of our White House regime was an object-lesson. I 
recall seeing Mr. Davis in home-spun, home-made 
clothes at State receptions. That required very positive 
patriotism if one could do better! 'Do look at Mr. 
Davis ! ' Mrs. Davis whispered, ' He zvill wear those 
clothes, and they look lop-sided ! ' Their deficiencies 
were more noticeable because he was so polished and 
elegant." 

One of the faithful shows me in her scrap-book a 
dispatch, of May 25, 1865, in the "Philadelphia 
Inquirer " : " Jeff does not pine in solitude. An officer 
and two soldiers remain continually in the cell with 
him." And then points to these words from the pen 
of Hugh McCulloch, Mr. Davis' visitor from Wash- 
ington : " He had the bearing of a brave and high-born 
gentleman, who, knowing he would have been highly 
honoured if the Southern States had achieved their inde- 
pendence, would not and could not demean himself as 
a criminal because they had not." She tells how men 



222 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

who had served under Mr. Davis in Mexico were among 
his guards at Fortress Monroe and showed him respect 
and kindness; and how almost everybody there grew 
to like him, he was so kind and courteous, and to the 
common soldier as to the strapped and starred officer. 

Our ladies sent articles for his comfort to Mr. Davis, 
but knew not if he received them. Dr. Minnegerode's 
efforts to see him were for a weary while without suc- 
cess. It seemed that his pastor, at least, might have 
had this privilege without question, especially such as 
Dr. Minnegerode, a man of signal peace and piety who 
had carried the consolations of religion and such com- 
forts as he could collect in an almost famine-stricken 
city to Federals in prison. His first endeavour, a letter 
of request to President Johnson, met no response. 
Finally, appeal was made through Rev. Dr. Hall, Mr. 
Stanton's pastor; to the committee of ladies waiting on 
him, Dr. Hall said he did not wish to read the petition, 
wished to have nothing to do with the matter; they 
besought, he read, and secured privilege of intercourse 
between pastor and prisoner. 

For months, Mr. Davis was not allowed to corre- 
spond with his wife; was allowed no book but the 
Bible; June 8, 1865, Stanton reproved General Miles 
for permitting the prison chaplain to visit him. He 
was unprepared for his pastor's coming, when Dr. 
Minnegerode, conducted by General Miles, entered his 
cell. In a sermon In St. Paul's after Mr. Davis' death, 
Dr. Minnegerode described this meeting. Mr. Davis 
had been removed (on medical Insistence) from the 
casemate, and was " in an end room on the second floor 
of Carroll Hall, with a passage and windows on each 
side of the room, and an anteroom In front, separated 
by an open grated door — a sentinel on each passage and 
before the grated door of the anteroom; six eyes always 



THE PRISONER 223 

upon him, day and night." With these eyes looking 
on, the long-parted friends, the pastor and the prisoner, 
met. 

When the question of Holy Communion was 
broached, Mr. Davis hesitated. " He was a pure and 
pious man, and felt the need and value of the means of 
grace. But could he take the Sacrament in the proper 
spirit — in a forgiving mind? He was too upright and 
conscientious to eat and drink unworthily — that is, not 
at peace with God and man, as far as in him lay." In 
the afternoon, General Miles took the pastor to the 
prisoner again. Mr. Davis was ready to pray, " Father, 
forgive them!" "Then came the Communion. It 
was night. The fortress was so still that you could hear 
a pin fall. General Miles, with his back to us, leaned 
against the fire-place in the anteroom, his head on his 
hands — not moving; sentinels stood like statues." 

Of Mr. Davis' treatment, Dr. Minnegerode said: 
"The officers were polite and sympathetic; the common 
soldiers — not one adopted the practice of high dignita- 
ries who spoke sneeringly of him as ' Jeff.' Not one 
but spoke of him in a subdued and kindly tone as ' Mr. 
Davis.' I went whenever I could," he adds, "to see 
my friend, and precious were the hours spent with 
that lowly, patient. God-fearing soul. It was in these 
private interviews that I learned to appreciate his noble. 
Christian character — 'pure in heart,' unselfish, without 
guile, and loyal unto death to his conscience and convic- 
tions." The prisoner's health failed fast. Officers 
thought it would be wise and humane to allow him more 
liberty; they knew that he not only had no desire to 
escape, but could not be induced to do so. He was 
begging for trial. The pastor, encouraged by Dr. Hall, 
called on Mr. Stanton. Ele had hoped to find the man 
of iron softened by sorrow; Mr. Stanton had lost a 



224 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

son; his remaining child was on his knees. His greet- 
ing was hke ice — a bow and nothing more. The pastor 
expressed thanks for permit to visit the prisoner, and 
respectfully broaching the subject of Mr. Davis' health, 
suggested that, as he neither would nor could escape, 
he be allowed the liberty of the fort. Mr. Stanton 
broke his silence: "It makes no difference what the 
state of Jeff Davis' health is. His trial will come on, 
no doubt. Time enough till that settles it." "It 
settled it in my leaving the presence of that man," said 
the pastor. "I realise," Dr. Craven protested, "the 
painful responsibilities of my position. If Mr. Davis 
were to die in prison, without trial, subject to such indig- 
nities as have been visited upon his attenuated frame, 
the world would form unjust conclusions, but conclu- 
sions with enough colour to pass them into history." 
Arguments breathing similar appreciation of the situa- 
tion began to appear in the Northern press, while men 
of prominence, advocating the application of the great 
principles of justice and humanity to his case, called for 
his release or trial; such lawyers as William B. Reed, 
of Philadelphia, and Charles O'Conor, of New York, 
tendered him free services. Strong friends were gath- 
ering around his wife. The Northern heart was 
waking. General Grant was one of those who used 
his influence to mitigate the severity of Mr. Davis' 
imprisonment. 

Again and again Mrs. Davis had implored permis- 
sion to go to him. " I will take any parole — do any- 
thing, if you will only let me see him 1 For the love of 
God and His merciful Son, do not refuse me!" was 
her cry to the War Department, January, 1866. No 
reply. Then, this telegram to Andrew Johnson from 
Montreal, April 25, 1866: "I hear my husband's 
health Is failing rapidly. Can I come to see him? 



THE PRISONER 225 

Can you refuse me? Varlna Davis." Stanton acqui- 
esced in Johnson's consent. And the husband and wife 
were reunited. 

Official reports to Washington, changing their tone, 
referred to him as "State Prisoner Davis" Instead of 
merely "Jeff Davis." The "National Republican," 
a Government organ, declared: "Something ought 
in justice to be done about his case. By every principle 
of justice as guaranteed by the Constitution, he ought 
to be released or brought to trial." It would have 
simplified matters had he asked pardon of the National 
Government. But this he never did, though friends, 
grieving over his sufferings, urged him. He did not 
hold that the South had committed treason or that he, 
in being her Chief Magistrate, was Arch-Traitor. 
Questions of difference between the States had been 
tried in the court of arms; the South had lost, had 
accepted conditions of defeat, would abide by them; 
that was all there was to it. Northern men were coming 
to see the question in the same light. 

Through indignities visited upon him who had been 
our Chief Magistrate was the South most deeply 
aggrieved and humiliated ; through the action of Horace 
Greeley and other Northern men coming to his rescue 
was the first real balm of healing laid upon the wound 
that gaped between the sections. That wound would 
have healed quickly, had not the most profound humil- 
iation of all, the negro ballot and white disfranchise- 
ment, been forced upon us. 

Among relics In the Confederate Museum Is a mask 
which Mr. Davis wore at Fortress Monroe. His wife 
sent it to him when she heard that the everlasting light 
in his eyes and the everlasting eyes of guards upon him 
were robbing him of sleep and threatening his eyesight 
and his reason. Over a mantel is Jefferson Davis' bond 



226 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

In a frame; under his name are those of his sureties, 
Horace Greeley's leading the signatures of Cornelius 
Vanderbilt, Gerrit Smith, Benjamin Wood, and 
Augustus Schell, all of New York; A. Welsh and D. K. 
Jackson, of Philadelphia ; and Southern sureties, W. H. 
McFarland, Richard Barton Haxall, Isaac Davenport, 
Abraham Warwick, Gustavus A. Myers, W. Crump, 
James Lyons, John A. Meredith, W. H. Lyons, John 
Minor Botts, Thomas W. Boswell, James Thomas. 
Thousands of Southerners would have rejoiced to sign 
that bond; but It must be pleasing now to visitors of 
both sections to see Northern and Southern names upon 
it. The mask and the bond tell the story. 



RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY 



CHAPTER XX 

Reconstruction Oratory 

Northern visitors, drawn to Richmond in the Spring 
of 1867, to the Davis trial, came upon the heels of a 
riot if not squarely into the midst of one. Friday, May 
10, began with a mass-meeting at one of the old 
Chimborazo buildings, where negroes of both sexes, 
various ages, and in all kinds of rags and raiment, con- 
gregated. Nothing could exceed the cheerfulness with 
which their initiation fees and monthly dues were 
received by the white Treasurer of the National Political 
Aid Society, while their names were called by the white 
Secretary — the one officer a carpet-bagger, the other 
a scalawag. Initiation fee was a quarter, monthly dues 
a dime; the Treasurer's table was piled with a hillock 
of small change. The Secretary added 400 names to a 
roll of 2,000. 

A negro leader, asked by a Northern reporter, 
"What's this money to be used for?" replied: . "We 
gwi sen' speakers all 'roun' de country, boss; gwi open 
de eyes er de cullud folks, an' show 'em how dee gotter 
vote. Some niggers out in de country don' know whe'er 
dee free er not — hoein' an' plowin' fuh white folks jes 
lak dee always been doin'. An' dee gwi vote lak white 
folks tell 'em ef dar ain' suppin' did. De country's 
gwi go tuh obstruction ef us whar knows don' molighten 
dem whar don' know. Dat huccum you sees what you 
does see." When collection had been taken up, a 
young carpet-bagger led in speech-making : 

" Dear friends : I rejoice to find myself in this noble 

229 



230 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

company of patriots. I see before me men and women 
who are bulwarks of the nation; ready to give their 
money, to work, to die, if need be, for freedom. Free- 
dom, my friends, is another name for the great Repub- 
lican Party. ("Hise yo' mouf tellin' dat truf!" 
"Dat'sso!" "Halleluia!" "Glory be tuh Gawd! ") 
The Republican Party gave you freedom and will pre- 
serve it inviolate ! (Applause; whispers: "What dat 
he spoken 'bout?" " Sho use big words! " " Dat man 
got sense. He know what he talkin' 'bout ef we 
don't!") That party was unknown in this grand old 
State until a few months ago. It has been rotten- 
egged! — ("Now ain't dat a shame!") although its 
speakers have only advocated the teachings of the Holy 
Bible. ( " Glory Halleluia ! " " Glory to de Lamb ! " 
" Jesus, my Marster ! ") The Republican Party is your 
friend that has led you out of the Wilderness into the 
Promised Land ! " Glories and halleluias reached 
climax in which two sisters were carried out shouting. 
" Disshere gitten' too much lak er 'ligious meetin' tub 
suit me," a sinner observed. 

" You do not need for me to tell you never to vote 
for one of these white traitors and rebels who held you 
as slaves. (" Dat we ain't! " "We'll see 'em in h — 
fust ! ") We have fought for you on the field of battle. 
Now you must organize and fight for yourselves. 
("We gwi do it, too! Dat we is! We gwi fight!") 
We have given you freedom. We intend to give you 
property. We, the Republican Party, propose to con- 
fiscate the land of these white rebels and traitors and 
give it to you, to whom it justly belongs — forty acres 
and a mule and $ioo to every one of you! (The 
Chairman exhausted himself seeking to subdue enthu- 
siasm.) The Republican Party cannot do this unless 
you give it your support. All that it asks is your vote 



RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY 231 

and your influence. If the white men of the South 
carry the elections, they will put you back into slavery." 

A scalawag delivered the gem of the occasion: 
"Ladies and gentlemen: I am happy to embrace this 
privilege of speaking to you. I desire to address first 
and very especially a few words to these ladies, for 
they wield an influence of which they are little aware. 
Whether poor or rich, however humble they may be, 
women exert a powerful influence over the hearts of 
men. I have been gratified to see you bringing your 
mites to the cause of truth. Emulate, my fair friends, 
the example of your ancestors who came over in the 
Mayflower, emulate your ancestors, the patriotic women 
of '76. Give your whole hearts, and all your influence 
to this noble work. And in benefits that will come to 
you, you shall be repaid an hundred-fold for every 
quarter and dime you here deposit!" The meeting 
closed with race-hatred stirred up to white heat in black 
breasts. 

Later in the day, Richmond firemen were entertain- 
ing visiting Delaware firemen with water-throwing. 
A policeman requested a negro, standing within reserved 
space, to move; Sambo would not budge; the ofl'icer 
pushed him back; Sambo struck the officer; there was 
a hubbub. A white bystander was struck, and struck 
back; a barber on the corner jerked up his pole and 
ran, waving it and yelling: "Come on, f reedmen I 
Now's de time to save yo' nation ! " Negroes of all 
sizes, sexes and ages, some half-clad, many drunk, 
poured into the street; brickbats flew; the officer was 
knocked down, his prisoner liberated. Screams of 
" Dem p'licemens shan't 'res' nobody, dat dee shan't ! " 
" Time done come fuh us tub stan' up fuh our rights! " 
were heard on all sides. The police, under orders not 
to fire, tried to disperse or hold them at bay, exercising 



232 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

marvellous patience when blacks shook fists In their 
faces, saying: "I dar you tuh shoot! I jes dar you 
tuh shoot I" 

Mayor Mayo addressed the crowd: "I command 
you in the name of the Commonwealth to go to your 
homes, every one, white and black; I give you my word 
every case shall be looked into and justice done." They 
moved a square, muttering : " Give us our rights, now — 
de cullud man's rights!" An ambulance rumbled up. 
Negroes broke into cheers. In It sat General Schofield, 
Federal Commandant, and General Brown, of the 
Freedmen's Bureau. "Speech! speech!" they called. 
" I want you to go to your homes and remain there," 
said General Schofield. They made no motion to obey, 
but called for a speech. " I did not come here to make 
a speech. I command you to disperse." They did not 
budge. The war lord was not there to trifle. In 
double-quick time. Company H of the Twenty-Ninth 
was on the ground and sent the crowd about its business. 
That night six companies were marched in from Camp 
Grant and disposed about the city at Mayor Mayo's 
discretion. 

High carnival in the Old African Church wound up 
the day. An educated coloured man from Boston pre- 
sided, and Carpet-Bagger-Philanthropist Hayward 
(who, having had the cold shoulder turned on him In 
Massachusetts, had come to Virginia) held forth: 
"The papers have made conspicuous my remarks that 
the negro Is better than the white man Why, I had 
no idea anybody was so stupid as to doubt it. When I 
contemplate such a noble race, and look upon you as 
you appear to me tonight, I could wish my own face 
were black!" "Ne'm min', boss!" sang out a sym- 
pathetic auditor, "Yo' heart's black! Dat's good 
enough!" The speaker was nonplussed for a second. 



RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY 233 

"When I go to Massachusetts, shall I tell the people 
there that you are determined to ride in the same cars 
on which white men and women ride?" "Yesl Yesl" 
" Shall I tell them you intend to go in and take your 
seats in any church where the Gospel is preached?" 
"Yes! Yesl Dat we isl" "Shall I tell them you 
intend to occupy any boxes in the theatre you pay your 
money for?" "You sho kin, boss!" "Yes, yesl" 
"Shall I tell them you intenc^ to enjoy, in whatever 
manner you see fit, any rights aitid privileges which the 
citizens of Massachusetts enjoy?" "Dat you kin!" 
"Tell 'em we gwi have our rights!" 

" If you cannot get them for yourselves, the young 
men of the Bay State will come down and help you. 
We have made you free. We will give you what you 
want." The coloured gentleman from Boston had to 
employ all his parliamentary skill before applause could 
be subdued for the speaker to continue. " You are 
brave. I am astonished at evidences of your bravery. 
To any who might be reckless, I give warning. You 
would not endanger the life of the illustrious Under- 
wood, would you?" (Judge Underwood, boss of the 
black ring, was in town to try Mr. Davis.) " Dat we 
wouldn' ! " " fFell, then, as soon as he leaves, you may 
have a high carnival in whatever way you please. It 
is not for me to advise you what to do, for great masses 
do generally what they have a mind to." 

Wrought up to frenzy, the negroes fairly shook the 
house; the chairman made sincere efforts to bring the 
meeting to order. The young white Secretary of the 
National Political Aid Society arose and said: "Mr. 
Speaker, you may tell the people of Massachusetts that 
the coloured people of Richmond are determined to go 
into any bar-room, theatre, hotel, or car they wish to 
enter." " Yes, you tell'em dat ! We will! We will!" 



234 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Next morning, our war lord brought Hayward up 
in short order. The meeting had come to his notice 
through Cowardin's report in the " Dispatch." The 
hearing was rich, a cluster of bright newspaper men 
being present, among them the "New York Herald" 
reporter, who endorsed Mr. Cowardin's account, and 
declared Hayward's speech inflammatory. It devel- 
oped that negroes had been petitioning to Washington 
for General Schofield's removal, a compliment paid all 
his predecessors. 

The idle and excitable negroes musr not be accepted 
as fully representative of their race. Those not heard 
from were the worthy ones, remaining at the houses 
of their white employers or in their own homes, and 
performing faithfully their regular duties. They were 
in the minority, but I believe the race would prefer now 
that these hum.ble toilers should be considered repre- 
sentative rather than the other class. Lending neither 
aid nor encouragement to insurrectionary methods, they 
yet dared not openly oppose the incendiary spirit which, 
had it been carried far enough, might have swept them, 
too, off their feet as their kindred became involved. 
Negroes stick together and conceal each other's defec- 
tions; this does not proceed altogether from race loy- 
alty; they fear each other; dread covert acts of ven- 
geance and being "conjured." Mysterious afflictions 
overtake the "conjured" or bewitched. 



THE PRISONER FREE 



CHAPTER XXI 

The Prisoner Free 

On a beautiful May afternoon, twa years after Mr. 
Davis' capture, the " John Sylvester " swung to the 
wharf at Rocketts and the prisoner walked forth, smil- 
ing quietly upon the people who, on the other side of 
the blue cordon of sentinels, watched the gangway, 
crying, " It is he ! it is he ! " Always slender, he was 
shadowy now, worn and thin to emaciation. He did 
not carry himself like a martyr. Only his attenuation, 
the sharpness of his features, the care-worn, haggard 
appearance of the face, the hair nearly all gray, the 
general indications of having aged ten years in two, 
made any appeal for sympathy. With him were his 
wife, Judge Ould, and Mr. James Lyons, Dr. Cooper, 
Mr. Burton Harrison, and General Burton, General 
Miles' successor, whose prisoner he yet was, but whose 
attitude was more that of friend than custodian. 

A reserved and dignified city is the Capital on the 
James, taking joys sedately; but that day she wore 
her heart on her sleeve; she cheered and wept. The 
green hills, streets, sidewalks, were alive with people; 
porches, windows, balconies, roofs, were thronged; 
Main Street was a lane of uncovered heads as two car- 
riages rolled swiftly towards the Spotswood, one hold- 
ing Mr. Davis, General Burton, Dr. Cooper and Mr. 
Harrison ; the other, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons, Mr. 
Lyons and Judge Ould; an escort of Federal cavalry 
bringing up the rear with clattering hoofs and clanging 
sabres. It was more like a victor's home-returning 

237 



238 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

than the bringing of a prisoner to trial. Yet through 
popular joy there throbbed the tragic note that marks 
the difference between the huzzas of a conquering people 
for their leader, and the welcoming " God bless you 1 " 
of a people subdued. 

This difference was noticeable at the Spotswood, 
which famous hostelry entertained many Northern 
guests. A double line of policemen, dividing the 
crowd, formed an avenue from sidewalk to ladies' 
entrance. This crowd, it seems, had its hat on. Among 
our own people may have been some who thought it 
not wise in their own or the prisoner's interests to show 
him too much honour. But as the emaciated, careworn 
man with the lofty bearing, stepped from the carriage, 
a voice, quiet but distinct, broke the impressive stillness : 
*' Hats off, Virginians 1 " Instantly every man stood 
uncovered. 

Monday he went to trial. The Court Room in the 
old Custom House was packed. In the persons of rep- 
resentative men,' North and South were there for his 
vindication of the charge of high treason. Were he 
guilty, then were we all of the South, and should be 
sentenced with him. 

Reporters for Northern papers were present with 
their Southern brethren of scratch-pad and pencil. The 
jury-box was a novelty to Northerners. In it sat a 
motley crew of negroes and whites. For portrait In 
part of the presiding judge, I refer to the case of 
McVeigh vs. Underwood, as reported in Twenty-third 
Grattan, decided in favour of McVeigh. When the 
Federal Army occupied Alexandria, John C. Under- 
wood used his position as United States District Judge 
to acquire the homestead, fully furnished, of Dr. 
McVeigh, then In Richmond. He confiscated It to the 
United States, denied McVeigh a hearing, sold It, 



THE PRISONER FREE 239 

bought it in his wife's name for $2,850 when it was 
worth not less than $20,000, and had her deed it to 
himself. The first time thereafter that Dr. McVeigh 
met the able jurist face to face on a street in Richmond, 
the good doctor, one of the most amiable of men, before 
he knew what he was doing, slapped the able jurist over 
and went about his business; whereupon, the Honour- 
able the United States Circuit Court picked himself up 
and went about his, which was sitting in judgment on 
cases in equity. In 1873, Dr. McVeigh's home was 
restored to him by law, the United States Supreme 
Court pronouncing Underwood's course " a blot upon 
our jurisprudence and civilisation." Underwood was 
in possession when he presided at the trial of Jefferson 
Davis. 

His personal appearance has been described as 
*'repellant; his head drooping; his hair long; his eyes 
shifty and unpleasing, and like a basilisk's; his clothes 
ill-fitting;" he "came into court, fawning, creeping, 
shuffling; ascended the bench in a manner awkward 
and ungainly; lifted his head like a turtle," "Hear 
ye ! hear ye ! Silence is commanded while the Honour- 
able the United States Circuit Court is in session ! " 
calls the crier on this May morning. 

General Burton, with soldierly simplicity, transfers 
the prisoner from the military to the civil power; 
Underwood embarrasses the officer and shames every 
lawyer present by a fatuous response abasing the bench 
before the bayonet. Erect, serene, undefiant, sur- 
rounded by mighty men of the Northern and Southern 
bar — O'Conor, Reed, Shea, Randolph Tucker, Ould — 
Jefferson Davis faces his judge, his own clear, fearless 
glance meeting squarely the "basilisk eye." 

The like of Underwood's charge to the jury was 
never heard before in this land. It caused one long 



240 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

blush from Maine to Texas, Massachusetts to Cali- 
fornia ; and resembled the Spanish War that came years 
after in that it gave Americans a common grievance. 
This poor, political bigot thought to please his Northern 
hearers by describing Richmond as " comely and spa- 
cious as a goodly apple on a gilded sepulchre where 
bloody treason flourished its whips of scorpions" and 
a "place where licentiousness has ruled until a majority 
of the births are illegitimate," and "the pulpit prosti- 
tuted by full-fed gay Lotharios." But the thing is too 
loathsome to quote! Northern reporters said it was 
not a charge, took no cognisance of the matter before 
the Court, was a " vulgar, inflammatory stump speech." 
The "New York Herald" pronounced it "The 
strangest mixture of drivel and nonsense that ever dis- 
graced a bench," and "without a parallel, with its foul- 
mouthed abuse of Richmond." "A disgrace to the 
American bench," declared the "New York World." 
" He has brought shame upon the entire bench of the 
country, for to the people of other countries he is a 
representative of American judges." 

There was no trial. Motion was made and granted 
for a continuance of the case to November, and bail 
given in bond for $100,000, which Horace Greeley 
signed first, the crowd cheering him as he went up to 
write his name, which was followed by signatures of 
other well-known men of both sections. " The Marshal 
will discharge the prisoner ! " a noble sentence in the 
judge's mouth at last! Applause shakes the Court 
Room. Men surge forward; Mr. Davis is surrounded; 
his friends, his lawyers, his sureties, crowd about him; 
the North and the South are shaking hands; a love- 
feast is on. Human nature is at Its best. The pris- 
oner is free. When he appears on the portico the 
crowd grows wild with joy. Somebody wrote North 



THE PRISONER FREE 241 

that they heard the old "Rebel yell" once more, and 
that something or other unpleasant ought to be done 
to us because we would " holler" like that whenever we 
got excited. 

It looks as If his carriage will never get back to the 
Spotswood, people press about him so, laughing, crying, 
congratulating, cheering. Negroes climb upon the car- 
riage steps, shaking his hand, kissing It, shouting: " God 
bless Mars Davis ! " No man was ever more beloved 
by negroes he owned or knew. 

The South was unchained. The South was set free. 
No ! That fall the first election at which negroes voted 
and whites — the majority disqualified by test-oath pro- 
vision — did not vote, was held to send delegates to a 
convention presided over by John C. Underwood. 
This convention- — the Black and Tan — made a new 
Constitution for the Old Dominion. 

" If black men will riot, I will fear that emancipa- 
tion Is a failure." So spoke the great abolitionist, 
Gerritt Smith, from the pulpit of the Old African 
Church Tuesday night after the Davis trial, " Riots 
in Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans have made 
me sick at heart." On the platform with him were 
Horace Greeley, Governor Plerpont, Colonel Lewis 
and Judge Underwood. His audience consisted of 
negroes, prominent white citizens of Richmond, Federal 
officers and their wives. The negroes, as ready to be 
swayed by good advice as bad, listened attentively to 
the wisest, most conservative addresses they had heard 
from civilians of the North, or than they were again 
to hear for a long time. Gerrit Smith, who was pour- 
ing out his money like water for their education, told 
them : 

" I do not consider the white people of the South 
traitors. The South is not alone responsible for slavery. 



242 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Northern as well as Southern ships brought negroes to 
this shore. When Northern States passed laws abol- 
ishing slavery in their borders, Northern people brought 
their negroes down here and sold them before those 
laws could take effect. I have been chased In the North 
by a pro-slavery mob — never In the South." Referring 
to the South's impoverished condition, he said he wished 
the Federal Government would give the section six 
years' exemption from the Federal tax to make rapid 
rehabilitation possible. He plead for harmony between 
races; urged whites to encourage blacks by selling lands 
to them cheap; urged blacks to frugality, Industry, 
sobriety; plead with them not to drink. "Why cannot 
you love the whites among whom you have been born 
and raised?" he asked. "We do! we do!" cried the 
poor darkeys who had yelled, " We will ! we will I " 
when Hayward was inciting them to mischief. 

Horace Greeley said: "I have heard In Richmond 
that coloured people would not buy homes or lands 
because they are expecting these through confiscation. 
Believe me, friends, you can much sooner earn a home. 
Confiscation Is a slow, legal process. (Underwood 
had not found It so.) Thaddeus Stevens, the great 
man who leads the movement — and perhaps one of the 
greatest men who ever sat In Congress — Is the only 
advocate of such a course, among all our representa- 
tives and senators. If It has not taken place in the 
two years since the war, we may not hope for It now. 
Famine, disaster, and deadly feuds would follow confis- 
cation." His voice, too, was raised against calling 
Southern whites " traitors," " This seems to me," he 
said, " to brand with the crime of treason — of felony — 
millions of our fellow-countrymen." 

It is to be said in reference to one part of Gerrit 
Smith's advice, that Southerners were only too ready 



THE PRISONER FREE 243 

to sell their lands at any price or on any terms to who- 
ever would buy. Had the negroes applied the indus- 
trial education which they then possessed they might 
have become owners of half the territory of the South. 
Politicians and theorists who diverted negroid energies 
into other channels were unconsciously serving Nature's 
purpose, the preservation of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
Upon every measure that might thwart that purpose, 
Nature seems to smile serenely, turning it to reverse 
account. 

A lively account of the seating of the first negro in 
the Congress of the United States was contained in 
a letter of February, 1870, from my friend, Miss 
Winfield, stopping in Washington. " Revels," she 
wrote, "occupies the seat of Jefferson Davis. The 
Republicans made as much of the ceremony as possible. 
To me it was infinitely sad, and infinitely absurd. We 
run everything in the ground in America. Here, away 
from the South, where the tragedy of it all is not so 
oppressively before me and where I see only the political 
clap-trap of the whole African business, I am prone 
to lose sight of the graver side and find things simply 
funny." 

A lively discussion preceded the seating. Senator 
Wilson said something very handsome about the " Swan 
Song of Slavery" and God's hand in the present state 
of affairs; as he was soaring above the impious Demo- 
crats, Mr. Casserly, one of the last-named sinners, 
bounced up and asked: "I would like to know when 
and where the Senator from Massachusetts obtained a 
commission to represent the Almighty in the Senate? 
I have not heard of such authorisation, and if such 
person has been selected for that office, it is only another 
illustration of the truism that the ways of Providence 



244 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

are mysterious and past finding out." Laughter put 
the "Swan Song" off key; Casserly said something 
about senators being made now, not by the voice of 
God and the people, but by the power of the bayonet, 
when somebody flung back at him, "You use the 
shelalah in New York ! " 

" But the ceremony ! " Miss Winfield wrote. ** Noth- 
ing has so impressed me since the ball to Prince Arthur, 
nor has anything so amused me unless it be the pipe- 
stem pantaloons our gentlemen wear in imitation of 
His Royal Highness. Senator Wilson conducted 
Revels to the Speaker's desk with a fine air that said: 
' Massachusetts has done it all ! ' Vice-President Colfax 
administered the oath with such unction as you never 
saw, then shook hands with great warmth with Revels — 
nobody ever before saw him greet a novitiate so cor- 
dially! But then, those others were only white menl 
With pomp and circumstance the sergeant-at-arms led 
the hero of the hour to his exalted position. ' Some 
day,' said my companion, ' history will record this as 
showing how far the race-madness of a people can go 
under political spurs.' Republican Senators fell over 
each other to shake Revels' hand and congratulate him. 
Poor Mississippi! And Revels is not even a native. 
General Ames, of Maine, is her other senator. Poor 
Mississippi I '* 



A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY 



CHAPTER XXII 

A Little Plain History 

For clearness in what has gone before and what fol- 
lows, I must write a little plain history. 

Many who ought to have known Mr. Lincoln's mind, 
among these General Sherman, with whom Mr. Lincoln 
had conversed freely, believed it his purpose to recog- 
nise existing State Governments in the South upon their 
compliance with certain conditions. These govern- 
ments were given no option; governors calling legis- 
latures for the purpose of expressing submission, were 
clapped into prison. Thus, these States were without 
civil State Governments, and under martial law. Some 
local governments and courts continued in operation 
subject to military power; military tribunals and Freed- 
men's Bureaus were established. 

Beginning May 29, 1865, with North Carolina, 
President Johnson reconstructed the South on the plan 
Mr. Lincoln had approved, appointing for each State 
a Provisional Governor empowered to call a convention 
to make a new State Constitution or remodel the old to 
meet new conditions. His policy was to appoint a 
citizen known for anti-Secession or Union sentiments, 
yet holding the faith and respect of his State, as Perry, 
of South Carolina; Sharkey, of Mississippi; Hamilton, 
of Texas. The conventions abolished slavery, annulled 
the secession ordinance, repudiated the Confederate 
debt, acknowledged the authority of the United States. 
An election was held for State officers and members 

247 



248 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

of the legislature, voters qualifying as previous to 1861, 
and by taking the amnesty oath of May 29. Legisla- 
tures reenacted the convention's work of annulling seces- 
sion, abolishing slavery, repudiating debt; and passed 
civil rights bills giving the negro status as a citizen, 
but without the franchise, though some leaders advised 
conferring it in a qualified form; they passed vagrancy 
laws which the North Interpreted as an effort at reen- 
slavement. 

Congress met December, 1865; President Johnson 
announced that all but two of the Southern States had 
reorganised their governments under the conditions 
required. Their representatives were In Washington 
to take their seats. With bitter, angry, contemptuous 
words, Congress refused to seat them. April 2, 1866, 
President Johnson proclaimed that In the South " the 
laws can be sustained by proper civil authority, State 
and Federal; the people are well and loyally disposed;" 
military occupation, martial law, military tribunals and 
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus " are In 
time of peace, dangerous to public liberty," " incom- 
patible with the rights of the citizen," etc., "and ought 
not to be sanctioned or allowed; . . . people who 
have revolted and been overcome and subdued, must 
either be dealt with so as to induce them volunta- 
rily to become friends or else they must be held by 
the absolute military power and devastated . 
which last-named policy Is abhorrent to humanity and 
freedom." 

March 2, 1867, Congress passed an act that 
"Whereas, no legal State Governments exist 
in the rebel States . . . said rebel States shall be 
divided Into five military districts." Over each a Fed- 
eral General was appointed; existing local governments 
were subject to him; he could reverse their decisions. 



A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY 249 

remove their officials and install substitutes; some 
commanders made radical use of power; others, wiser 
and kindlier, interfered with existing governments 
only as their position compelled. Upon the com- 
manders Congress imposed the task of reconstruct- 
ing these already once reconstructed States. Dele- 
gates to another convention to frame another Con- 
stitution were to be elected, the negroes voting. 
Of voters the test-oath was required, a provision 
practically disfranchising Southern whites and disquali- 
fying them for office. Thaddeus Stevens, leader of 
the party forcing these measures, said of negro 
suffrage: "If it be a punishment to rebels, they 
deserve it." 

Black and Tan Conventions met in long and costly 
sessions. That of Mississippi sat over a month before 
beginning the task for which convened, having passed 
the time in fixing per diems, mileages, proposing a 
bonus for negroes dismissed by employers, imposing 
taxes on anything and everything to meet the expenses 
of the convention; and badgering General Gillem, 
Commander of the District. The Blank and Tan 
Conventions framed constitutions which, with tickets 
for State and National officers, were submitted to 
popular vote, negroes, dominated by a few cor- 
rupt whites, determining elections. With these con- 
stitutions and officials, " carpet-bag rule " came into 
full power and States were plundered. The sins 
of these governments have been specified by North- 
ern and Southern authorities in figures of dollars and 
cents. At first. Southern Unionists and Northern set- 
tlers joined issues with the Republican Party. Oppres- 
sive taxation, spoliation, and other evils drove all respect- 
able citizens into coalitions opposing this party; these 
coalitions broke up Radical rule in the Southern States, 



250 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the last conquest being in Louisiana and South Caro- 
lina in 1876. No words can present any adequate 
picture of the " mongrel " conventions and legislatures, 
but in the following chapter I try to give some 
idea of the absurdities of one, which may be taken as 
type of all.* 

* See " History of the Last Quarter Century in the United 
States," by E. B. Andrews ; " Reconstruction and the Constitution," 
by J. W. Burgess ; " Destruction and Reconstruction," by Richard 
Taylor ; " History of the American People ; Reunion and Nation- 
alism," by Woodrow Wilson; "A Political Crime," by A. M. 
Gibson; "The Lower South" and "History of the United States 
since the Civil War," by W. G. Brown ; " Essays on the Civil War 
and Reconstruction " and " Reconstruction, Political and Economic," 
by W. A. Dunning; articles in "Atlantic Monthly" during 1901 ; 
Johns Hopkins University Studies and Columbia University Studies ; 
Walter L. Fleming's " Documents Illustrative of the Reconstruction 
Period"; besides treating every phase of the subject, these "Docu- 
ments " give a full bibliography ; " A New South View of Recon- 
struction," Trent, " Sewanee Review," Jan., 1901 ; and other maga- 
zine articles. 



THE BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION 



CHAPTER XXIII 

The Black and Tan Convention: The "Mid- 
night Constitution" 

The Black and Tan Convention met December 3, 
1867, in our venerable and historic Capitol to frame a 
new constitution for the Old Dominion. In this body 
were members from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, District of 
Columbia, Ireland, Scotland, Nova Scotia, Canada, 
England; scalawags, or turn-coats, by Southerners most 
hated of all; twenty-four negroes; and in the total of 
105, thirty-five white Virginians, from counties of excess 
white population, who might be considered representa- 
tive of the State's culture and intelligence. It was 
officered by foreigners and negroes; John C. Under- 
wood, of New York, being President. 

Capitol Square was garlanded with tables and stands; 
and the season was one of joy to black and yellow 
vendors of ginger-cakes, goobers, lemonade, and cheap 
whiskey. Early ornaments of the Capitol steps were 
ebony law-makers sporting tall silk hats, gold-headed 
canes, broadcloth suits, the coat always Prince Albert. 
Throughout the South this was the uniform of sable 
dignitaries as soon as emoluments permitted. The 
funny sayings and doings of negroes, sitting for the 
first time in legislative halls, were rehearsed in conver- 
sation and reported in papers; visitors went to the 
Capitol as to a monkey or minstrel show. Most of 
these darkeys, fresh from tobacco lots and corn and 
cotton fields, were as innocent as babes of any knowl- 
edge of reading and writing. 

253 



254 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

They were equally guileless in other directions. 
Before the body was organised, an enthusiastic delegate 
bounced up to say something, but the Chair nipped him 
untimely in the bud: "No motion is in order until 
roll is called. Gentlemen will please remember parlia- 
mentary usage." The member sank limp into his seat, 
asking in awed whisper of his neighbour: "Whut in 
de worF is dat?" Perplexity was great when a mem- 
ber rose to "make an inquiry." " Whut's dat?" 
"Whut dat he gwi make?" was whispered round, the 
question being settled summarily: " Well, it don' make 
no diffunce. We ain' gwi let him do it nohow case he 
ain' no Radicule." White constituents soon tried to 
muzzle black orators. Word was passed that white 
*' Radicules " would talk and black members keep silent 
and vote as they were bid. " Shew ! She-ew ! " " Set 
down!" "Shut the door!" were household words, the 
last ejaculation coming into request when scraps seemed 
imminent and members wanted the sergeant-at-arms to 
take each other, yet preferred that the public should 
not be witness to these little family jars. 

Black, white, and yellow pages flew around, waiting 
on members; the blacker the dignitary, the whiter the 
page he summoned to bring pens, Ink, paper, apples, 
ginger-cakes, goober-peas. And newspapers. No 
sooner did darkeys observe that whites sent out and 
got newspapers than they did likewise; and sat there 
reading them upside down. 

The gallery of coloured men and women come 
to see the show were almost as diverting as the law- 
makers. Great were the flutterings over the seating of 
John Morrissey, the "Wild Irishman," mistaken for 
his namesake, the New York pugilist. " Dat ain't de 
man dat fit Tom Higher ? " "I tell you it am ! " " Sho 
got muscle!" "He come tuh fit dem Preservatives 



BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION 255 

over dar." According to the happy darkey knack of 
saying the wrong thing in the right place, a significant 
version of " Conservative " was thus appHed to the 
little handful of representative white Virginians. 
Great, too, were the flutterlngs when Governor " Plow- 
pint " (so darkeys pronounced Pierpont) paid his visit 
of ceremony; and when General Schofield and aide 
marched in in war-paint and feathers : the Chair waved 
the gavel and the convention rose to its feet to receive 
the distinguished guests. The war lord was to pay 
another and less welcome visit. The piety of neither 
gallery nor convention could be questioned if the fervor 
and frequency of "Amens!" interrupting the petitions 
of the Chaplain (from Illinois) were an indication; 
Dr. Bayne, of Norfolk, so raised his voice above the 
rest that his colleagues became concerned lest that sea- 
port were claiming for herself more than just propor- 
tion of religious zeal. 

Curiosity was on tip-toe when motion was made that 
a stenographer be appointed, " ' Snographer ? ' What's 
dat?" "Maybe it's de pusson whut takes down de 
speeches befo' dee's spoken," explains a wise one. The 
riddle was partly solved when a spruce, foreign Indi- 
vidual of white complexion rose and walked to the 
desk, vacated in his favour by a gentleman of colour. 
"Dar he! dat'shim!" " War's good close, anyhow ! " 
was pronounced of the new official; then the retired 
claimed sympathy: "Whut he done?" "Whut dee 
tu'n him out fuh?" "Ain't dee gwl give niggers 
nothin' ? " " Muzzling " was not yet begun ; this occa- 
sion for eloquence was not to be ignored by the Honour- 
able Lewis Lindsay, representing Richmond : " MIstah 
Presidet, I hopes in dis late hour dat Ole Fuhginny 
am Imperilated, dat no free-thinkin' man kin suppose 
fuh one minute dat we 'sires tub misrippersint de idee 



256 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

dat we ain' qualify de sability uh de sternogphy uh dis 
convention. I hopes, suh, dat we kin den be able tuh 
superhen' de principles uh de supposition." 

Lindsay would always rise to an occasion if his coat- 
tails were not pulled too hard. Fortunately, his match- 
less oration on the mixed school question was not among 
gems lost to the world: "Mistah Presidet, de real 
flatform, suh. I'll sw'ar tuh high Heaven. Yes, I'll 
sw'ar higher dan dat. I'll go down an' de uth shall 
crumble intuh dus' befo' dee shall amalgamise my 
rights. 'Bout dis question uh cyarpet-bags. Ef you 
cyarpet-baggers does go back on us, woes be unto you ! 
You better take yo' cyarpet-bags an' quit, an' de quicker 
you git up an' git de better. I do not abdicate de sup- 
perstition tuh dese strange frien's, lately so-called citi- 
zens uh Fuhginny. Ef dee don' gimme my rights, I'll 
suffer dis country tuh be lak Sarah. I'll suffer dester- 
lation fus! When I blows my horn dee'll hear it! 
When de big cannons was thund'in, an' de missions uh 
death was flyin' thu de a'r, dee hollered: ' Come, Mr. 
Nigguh, come ! ' an' he done come ! I'se here tuh 
qualify my constituents. I'll sing tuh Rome an' tuh 
Englan' an' tuh de uttermos' parts uh de uth — " *' You 
must address yourself to the Chair," said that func- 
tionary, ready to faint. " All right, suh. I'll not 'sire 
tuh maintain de House any longer." 

That clause against mixed schools was a rock upon 
which the Radical party split, white members with chil- 
dren voting for separate education of races; most 
darkeys " didn' want no sech claw in de law " ; yet one 
declared he din't want his " chillun tuh soshate wid 
rebels an' traitors nohow"; they were "as high above 
rebels an' traitors ez Heaven 'bove hell ! " Lindsay 
took occasion to wither white "Radicules" with criti- 
cism on colour distribution in the gallery. "Whar is 



BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION 257 

de white Radlcule members' wives an' chlllun?" he 
asked, waving his hand towards the white section. 
"When dee comes here dee mos'ly set dar se'ves on 
dat side de House, whilst I brings mine on dis side," 
waving towards the black, " irregardless uh how white 
she is!" 

Hodges, of Princess Anne, was an interesting mem- 
ber; wore large, iron-rimmed spectacles and had a 
solemn, owl-like way of staring through them. One 
day, he gave the convention the creeps: *' Dar's a boy 
in dis House," he said with awful gravity, " whar better 
be outen do's. He's done seconded a motion." The 
House, following his accusing spectacles and finger, 
fixed its eye upon a shrivelling mulatto youth who had 
slipped into a member's chair. A coloured brother 
took the intruder's part. Lindsay threw himself into 
the breach: *' Mistah Presidet, I hears de correspond- 
ence dat have passed an' de gemmun obsarves it have 
been spoken." ** I seen him open his mouf an' I seen 
de words come outen it ! " cried Hodges. The usurper, 
seizing the first instant Hodges turned his head another 
way, fled for his life, while somebody was making 
motion "to bring him before the bar." 

The convention's thorn in the side was Eustace 
Gibson, white member from Giles and Pulaski, who 
had a knack for making the convention see how ridicu- 
lous it was. Negroes were famous for rising to " pints 
of order"; they laughed at themselves one day when 
two eloquent members became entangled and fell down 
in a heap in the aisle and Mr. Gibson, gravely rising to 
a point of order, moved that it was " not parliamentary 
for two persons to occupy the floor at one time." When 
questions of per diem arose, sable eloquence flowed like 
a cataract and Gibson's wit played like lightning 
over the torrents. Muzzling was difiicult. " Mistah 



258 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Churman, ef I may be allowed tuh state de perquisi- 
tion — " a member would begin and get no further 
before a persuasive hand on his coat-tails would reduce 
him to silence. Dr. Bayne's coat-tails resisted force 
and appeal. 

" I wants $9, I does," he said. *' But den I ain' gwl 
be dissatisfied wid $8.50. Cose, I kin live widout dat 
half a dollar ef I choose tuh. But ef I don' choose 
tuh? Anybody got anything tuh say 'gins dat? Hey? 
Here we is sleepin' 'way f'om home, leavin' our wives 
an' our expenses uh bode an' washin'. Why, whut you 
gwi do wid de po' delegate dat ain' got no expenses uh 
bode an' washin'? Tell me dat? Why, you fo'ce 
'em tuh steal, an' make dar constituen's look upon 'em 
as po' narrer-minded fellers." One member murmured 
plaintively : " I ain' had no money paid me sence 
'lection — " "Shew! She-ew! Shew !" his coat-tails 
were almost jerked off. " You gwi tell suppin you ain' 
got no business!" "Mr. Churman, I adject. De 
line whar's his line, an' dat's de line I contain fuh — " 
" Shew ! She-ew ! Set down ! " " What de Bible say 
'bout it?" demanded a pious brother. " De Bible it 
say: 'Pay de labour' de higher.' Who gwi 'spute de 
Book?" "This debate has already cost the State 
$400," Mr. Gibson interposed wearily. 

They finally agreed to worry along upon $8 a day^ 
a lower per diem than was claimed, I believe, in any 
other State. When the per diem question bobbed up 
again. State funds were running low, but motion for 
adjournment died when it was learned that of the 
$100,000 in the treasury when the convention began 
to sit, $30,000 remained. Retrenchment was In order, 
however, and the " Snographer's " head fell. He was 
impeached for charging $3.33 a page for spider-legs, 
which he was not translating Into English. Mr. 



BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION 259 

Gibson showed that he had been drawing $200 a day 
in advance for ten days; had drawn $2,000 for the 
month of February, yet had not submitted work for 
January. The convention began to negotiate a $90,000 
loan on its own note to pay itself to sit longer, when our 
war lord came to the front and gave opinion that it 
had sat long enough to do what it had been called to 
do, and that after ten days per diems must cease. 
Another hurrying process was said to be at work. 
Reports were abroad that the Ku Klux, having reached 
conclusion that Richmond had been neglected, was on 
the way. Solid reason for adjournment was death of 
the per diem ; but for which the convention might have 
been sitting yet. 

The morning of the last day, the sergeant-at-arms 
flung wide the door, announcing General Schofield, who, 
entering with Colonels Campbell, Wherry and Mallory, 
of his Staff, was escorted to the Speaker's stand. He 
came to protest against constitutional clauses disqualify- 
ing white Virginians. He said: "You cannot find in 
Virginia a full number of men capable of filling office 
who can take the oath you have prescribed. County 
offices pay limited salary; even a common labourer could 
not afford to come from abroad for the purpose of filling 
them. I have no hesitation in saying that I do not 
believe it possible to inaugurate a government upon that 
basis." It was a business man's argument, an appeal to 
patriotism and common sense. It failed. When he went 
out, they called him " King Schofield," and retained those 
clauses in the Instrument which they ratified that night 
when the hands on the clocks of the Capitol pointed 
to twelve and the Midnight Constitution came to birth. 

When General Schofield left in 1868 to become Secre- 
tary of War, the leading paper said: "General Scho- 
field has been the best of all the military command- 



26o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ants placed over the Southern States. He has saved 
Virginia from much humiliation and distress that other 
States have suffered." What he did for Virginia, 
General Gillem, General Hancock and some other com- 
manders tried to do for districts under their command. 
General Stoneman, who succeeded General Schofield, 
also fought the test-oath clauses. 

When our Committee of Nine went to Washington 
to protest against those clauses, General Schofield 
appeared with them before President-elect Grant and one 
of General Grant's first acts as President was to arrange 
with Congress that Virginia should have the privilege 
of voting upon those clauses and the constitution sepa- 
rately, and that other States should have like privileges 
in regard to similar clauses in their constitutions. 

Every American should study the history in detail of 
each Southern State during the period of which I write. 
He should acquaint himself at first hand with the atti- 
tude of the South when the war closed, and In this 
connection I particularly refer my reader to the address 
Governor Allen delivered to the people of Louisiana 
before going to Mexico, where he died in exile ; and to 
the addresses of Perry, of South Carolina, and Throck- 
morton, of Texas.* He should compare the character 
and costs of the first legislatures and conventions assem- 
bling and the character and costs of the mongrel bodies 
succeeding them. He will then take himself in hand and 
resolve never to follow blindly the leadership of any 
party, nor attempt to put in practice in another man's 
home the abstract theories of speculative humanitarians. 



* Phelps* " Louisiana," Perry's " Provisional Governorship," 
•Why Solid South," Hilary Herbert. 



SECRET SOCIETffiS 



1^ 



i 



«% 



CHAPTER XXiy 

Secret Societies 

Loyal League, White Camelias, White Brother- 
hood, Pale Faces, Ku Klux 

Parent of all was the Union or Loyal League, whose 
history may be briefly summarised: Organisation for 
dignified ends In Philadelphia and New York In 1862-3 > 
extension Into the South among white Unionists ; forma- 
tion, 1866, of negro leagues; admission of blacks into 
"mixed" leagues; rapid withdrawal of native whites 
and Northern settlers until leagues were composed 
almost wholly of negroes dominated by a few white 
political leaders. Churches, halls, schoolhouses, were 
headquarters where mystic Initiation rites, Inflammatory 
speeches, military drills, were In order. The League's 
professed object was the training of the negro to his 
duties as a citizen. It made him a terror and forced 
whites Into the formation of counter secret societies for 
the protection of their firesides. 

"To defend and perpetuate freedom and the Consti- 
tution, the supremacy of law and the Inherent rights of 
civil and religious freedom, and to accomplish the 
objects of the organisation, I pledge my life, my for- 
tune and my sacred honour." This was the oath In 
part. Members were sworn to vote only for candidates 
endorsed by the league. The ritual appealed to the 
negro's superstition. The catechism inculcated oppo- 
sition to the Democratic Party, fealty to the Radical 
Republican, condemnation of Southern whites as trait- 

263 



264 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ors. Candidates for membership were conducted to 
the Council Chamber; here, the Marshal rapped the 
league alarm, the Sentinel called, "Who comes under 
our signal? " Answer given, the door opens cautiously, 
countersign is demanded, and given in the " Four Ls" — 
the right hand pointing upward with the word, " Lib- 
erty," sinking to shoulder level with " Lincoln," drop- 
ping to the side with "Loyal," folding to the breast 
with " League." The Council receives the novitiates 
standing, as they march in arm in arm, singing, " John 
Brown's Body" and take positions around the altar 
before which the President stands In regalia. 

The altar is draped with the flag, on which lies an 
open Bible, the Declaration of Independence, a sword, 
ballot-box, sickle, and anvil or other toy emblems of 
industry. At first the room may be in darkness with 
sounds of groans and clanking chains issuing from cor- 
ners. The chaplain calls the league to prayer, invok- 
ing Divine vengeance on traitors. From a censer 
(sometimes an old stove vase) upon the altar blue 
flames, " fires of liberty," leap upward. The Council 
opens ranks to receive novitiates; joining hands, all 
circle round the altar, singing, "The Star-Spangled 
Banner" or other patriotic air. Novitiates lay hands 
upon the flag, kiss the Bible and swear: " I will do all 
in my power to elect true and loyal men to all oflUces 
of trust and profit." Instructions in pass-words, sig- 
nals, etc., are given. Secret business Is transacted. 

Negroes were drilled, armed and marched about. 
Into League rooms social features were introduced, 
League literature was read aloud, feminine branches 
were formed. Leagues furnished a secret service 
bureau. Coloured servants told what happened In 
white houses. " My cook and I were children together," 
a friend tells me. " As we grew up, she made me read 



SECRET SOCIETIES 265 

and write her letters. One day, after freedom, she said, 
' Miss, put 'tin dar fuh Jeems tuh write me suppin funny 
nex' time he do write. We has to have all our letters 
read out in church an' when dere's anything funny, de 
folks laugh.' Soon she ceased asking my services. 
Through this plan of having letters read out in church 
leagues and bureaus collected information of happen- 
ings in private homes from far and wide. Such glean- 
ings might be useful in revealing political or self-pro- 
tective movements among whites, in hunting a man 
down; or serving his political or social enemy, or 
would-be robber." 

In a South Carolina mansion, Mrs. Vincent and her 
daughter Lucy lived alone except for a few faithful 
ex-slaves. A cabin on the edge of the plantation was 
rented to Wash, a negro member of the Loyal League, 
whose organiser was Captain Johnson, commander of a 
small garrison in a nearby town. The captain was fond 
of imposing fines upon whites against whom negroes 
entered complaint. There seemed nice adjustment 
between fines and defendants' available cash. One day 
Wash, pushing past Lucy's maid into the Vincent parlor, 
said to Lucy's mother, " I'se come to cote Miss Lucy." 
"Leave the house!" "I ain' gwi leave no such a 
thing 1 I'se gwi marry Lucy an' live here wid you." 
Lucy appeared. " I'se come to ax you to have me. 
I'se de ve'y man fuh you to hitch up wid. DIs here 
place b'long to me. You b'long to me." She whipped 
out a pistol and covered him. " Run ! Run for your 
life!" He ran. When he was out of pistol-shot, he 
turned and yelled: "You d — d white she-cat I I'll 
make you know ! " She caught up a musket and fired. 
Balls whistled past his head; he renewed his flight. 

Next morning, as the ladles, pale and miserable, sat 
at breakfast, a squad of soldiers filed in, took seats, 



266 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

helped themselves and ordered the butler around. The 
ladies rose and were arrested. A wagon was at the 
door. *' Please, marsters," said black Jerry humbly, 
"lemme hitch up de kerridge an' kyar Mistiss an' Miss 
Lucy in it. 'Taint fitten fuh 'em to ride in a waggin — 
an' wid strange mens." His request was refused. The 
ladies were arraigned before Captain Johnson on charge 
that they had used insulting language to Mr. Washing- 
ton Singleton Pettigru; and that Lucy, "in defiance of 
law and morals and actuated by the devil," had "with- 
out provocation" fired on him with intent to kill. A 
fine of $1,000 or six months in jail was imposed. "I 
have not so much money I " cried Mrs. Vincent. " Jail 
may change your mind," said the captain. They were 
committed to a loathsome cell, their determination alone 
preventing separation. 

Lawyers flocked to their defense; the captain would 
hear none. Towards nightfall the town filled with white 
men wearing set faces. The captain sent for one of the 
lawyers. The lawyer said: " Unless you release those 
ladies from the jail at once, no one can tell what may 
happen. But this I believe : you, nor a member of your 
garrison, will be alive tomorrow." They were released ; 
fine remitted; the captain left in haste. An ofiicer came 
from Columbia to investigate " disorder in the district." 
He condemned Johnson's course and tried to reassure 
the community. It came out that Johnson had received 
information that Mrs. Vincent held a large, redeemable 
note; he had incited Wash to "set up" to Miss Lucy, 
urging that by marrying her he would become the plan- 
tation's owner: "Call in your best duds and ask her 
to marry you. If she refuses, we will find a way to 
punish her." Wash, it was thought, had fled the 
country. The negro body-servant of Lucy's dead 
brother had felt that the duty of avenger devolved upon 



SECRET SOCIETIES 267 

him, and in his own way he had slain Wash and covered 
up the deed. 

A white congregation was at worship in a little South 
Carolina church when negro soldiers filed in and began 
to take seats beside the ladies. The pastor had just 
given out his text; he stretched forth his hands and said 
simply: "Receive the benediction," and dismissed his 
people. A congregation in another country church was 
thrown into panic by balls crashing through boards and 
windows; a girl of fourteen was killed instantly. Black 
troops swung by, singing. Into a dwelling a squad of 
blacks marched, bound the owner, a prominent aged 
citizen, pillaged his house, and then before his eyes, 
bound his maiden daughter and proceeded to fight 
among themselves for her possession. " Though," 
related my informant with sharp realism, *' her neck 
and face had been slobbered over, she stood quietly 
watching the conflict. At last, the victor came to her, 
caught her in his arms and started Into an adjoining 
room, when he wavered and fell, she with him ; she had 
driven a knife, of which she had in some way possessed 
herself, into his heart. The others rushed in and beat 
her until she, too, was lifeless. There was no redress." 

In black belts, where such things happened and where 
negroes talked openly of killing out white men and 
taking white women for wives, the whites, few in num- 
ber, poorly armed and without organisation, scattered 
over the country and leading themselves in no insignifi- 
cant proportion the lives of the hunted, faced a desperate 
situation. Many who chanced to give offense to the 
ruling faction or who by force of character were consid- 
ered obstacles to its advancement, found themselves 
victims of false charges, and, chased by troops, had to 
leave their families and dwell in swamps or other hiding- 
places. Compelled by necessity to labour in the field, 



268 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

white gentlemen going to their toil, let down gaps in 
surrounding fences so that they might fly at a moment's 
notice, and plowed with saddles on their horses' backs. 
Northerners, and Southerners who did not live in that 
day and in black belts, can form no conception of the 
conditions which gave rise to the white secret societies 
of which the most widely celebrated is the Ku Klux. 

Larger in numbers and wider in distribution was the 
order of the Knights of the White Camelia, originating 
in Louisiana; small protective bodies consolidating May 
23, 1867, in New Orleans, took this title. Extension 
over the United States was purposed. Its first article 
of faith was preservation of the Integrity of the white 
race, and, In government, white supremacy. At the 
door of the Council Chamber the blindfolded candidate 
for initiation vowed: "The cause of our race must 
triumph ;" and " We must all be united as are the flowers 
that grow on one stem." He swore " Never to marry 
any woman but of the white race." Mongrel legisla- 
tures were enacting laws about co-education and inter- 
marriage of races; the whites were a "bewildered 
people." In Mississippi, the order of the Knights of 
the White Rose was modelled on the White Camelias; 
in Alabama, the White Brotherhood and the White 
League; there were Pale Faces, Union Guards, and 
others, all of which, with the White Camelias, may be 
included In the Ku Klux movement. 

The Ku Klux originated near Pulaski, Tennessee, 
1866, in something akin to a college boys' frolic. Some 
young ex-Confederates, of good families, finding time 
heavy on their hands after war's excitement, banded 
together In a fraternity, with Initiation rites, signals, 
oaths of secrecy, and a name after the Greek, kyklos, 
a circle, corrupted Into kuklos, kuklux, and adding klan. 
Their " den " was a deserted house near the town. They 




From a portrait by Osgood, photographed by Reckling & Sons 

MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS, OF SOUTH CAROLINA 

(Daughter of Governor Miller) 



SECRET SOCIETIES 269 

rode at night in queer disguises ; at first, without other 
object than diversion. Their fear and fame spread; 
branches were formed in other counties and States. In 
their pranks and negro superstition, whites found 
weapon for protection and defense. Through troubled 
neighbourhoods, white horsemen riding in noiseless pro- 
cession, restored peace by parade and sometimes by 
sterner measures. 

Notices left as warnings on doors or pinned to town- 
pumps or trees bore cross-bones and skull in red ink, and 
such inscriptions as : 

K K K 

The Raven Croaked 

and we are come to Look on the Moon. 

The Lion Tracks the Jackal 

the Bear the Wolf 

Our Shrouds are Bloody 

But the Midnight is Black. 

The Serpent and Scorpion are Ready. 

Some Shall Weep and Some Shall Pray. 

Meet at Skull 

For Feast of the Wolf and 

Dance of the Muffled Skeletons. 

The Death Watch is Set 

The Last Hour Cometh. 

The Moon is Full. 

Burst your cerements asunder 

Meet at the Den of the Glow- Worm 

The Guilty Shall be Punished. 

T have felt defrauded of my rights because I never 
saw a Ku Klux; my native Virginia seems not to have 
had any. I have seen them abundantly, however, 
through the eyes of others* One of my cousins went, 
during K. K. days, to be bridesmaid to a Georgia cousin. 
One night, as she and the bride-elect sat on the piazza, 
there appeared in the circular driveway a white apparl- 



270 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tion of unearthly height, on a charger in white trap- 
pings. Behind came another and another, the horses 
moving without sound; they passed in silent review 
before the girls, each spectre saluting. With cold chills 
running down her spine. Sue asked, " fFhat are they?" 
Her companion laughed. "Haven't you been saying 
you wanted to see the Ku Klux?" News enough next 
morning ! A white man had been found tied to a tree^ 
and over his head, pinned to the bark, a notice written 
in his blood, warning him to leave the county at once 
unless he desired to be carried out by a pathway to — 
a grave with headstone neatly drawn and showing 
epitaph with date of death, completed the sentence. He 
had been flogged and a scratch on his breast showed 
whence red Ink had been drawn. As soon as untied, he 
left for parts unknown. 

Neighbourhood darkeys had eyes big as saucers. 
Many quarters had been visited. Sable uncles and 
aunties shook their heads, muttering: " Jedgment Day 
'bout tub come. Gab'el gwi blow his ho'n an' sinners 
better be a-moanin' an' a-prayin'. Yes, my Lawd!" 
And: '"Tain't jes one Death a-ridin' on a pale horse 1 
it's tens uv thousan's uv 'em is ridin' now. Sinner, you 
better go pray 1 " A few who had been making them- 
selves seriously obnoxious observed terrified silence and 
improved demeanour. An expert chicken-thief had 
received a special notice in which skulls and cross-bones 
and chicken-heads and toes were tastefully Intermixed. 
Others were remembered in art designs of the "All- 
Seeing Eye," reminder that they were being watched. 

The white man was a receiver of stolen goods and 
instigator of barn-burnings; had been tried for some 
one of his offenses and committed to the penitentiary, 
only to be pardoned out by the State Executive. In a 
North Carolina case of which I heard, a negro firebug 



SECRET SOCIETIES 271 

who could not be brought to justice through law, though 
the burning of two barns and a full stable were traced to 
him, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up 
after a night in which all the darkeys around smelled 
brimstone and saw fiery-eyed and long-tailed devils at 
large. People were hard put to it for protection against 
fire-fiends. 

In a South Carolina newspaper a notice appeared 
from a man who gave warning that he would take ven- 
geance into his own hands if incendiaries fired his prop- 
erty again. 

The Ku Klux ruled its members with iron rod. Mr. 
M., of the order in Tazewell, N. C, was building a 
cabin on his place for a negro who had come under ban 
because of evil influence over other negroes; word had 
been passed that he was to be crowded out. A message 
reached Mr. M. : " Do not let this negro come on your 
place. K. K, K.", with due skull and cross-bones accom- 
paniment. To close friends of the order Mr. M. said: 
"My rights shall not be abridged by the Klan." The 
cabin was finished on Saturday. Sunday he asked a 
visitor: "Let's take a stroll In the woods and a look 
at Henry's cabin." When they came to where the 
cabin had stood, Mr. M. exclaimed: "Why, what does 
this mean? Lo and behold, the cabin and everything 
is torn down and the logs scattered every which-a-way 1 " 
"And what's this?" his friend asked, pointing to three 
new-made graves with pine head-boards. Inscribed 
respectively In epitaph to Mr. M., Henry, and Henry's 
wife, Mr. M.'s death dated the ensuing Sabbath. On 
a tiny hillock was a small gallows with grapevine attach- 
ment. As one of the order, Mr. M. knew enough to 
make him 111 at ease. Friends begged him to leave the 
country for a time, and he went. " This may look like 
tyranny," said my Informant, "but Mr. M. ought to 



272 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

have heeded the first message. The order could only 
do effective work through unfailing execution of sen- 
tence." 

Between a young lady and the son of a house in which 
she was a guest, a tender passion arose. He had myste- 
rious absences lasting half or all night, after which 
his horse would be found in the stables, lathered with 
foam. The family rallied him on his devotion to a fair 
demoiselle in an adjoining county. Though under cold 
treatment from the guest, he gave no other explanation 
until one day he conducted her and his sister into his 
room, locked the door, swore them to secrecy, drew from 
its hiding-place up the chimney a Ku Klux outfit and 
asked them to make duplicates for a new Klan he was 
forming. The lovers came to understanding; the girl 
reproached him: "Why did you not tell me before?" 
" I did not know if you could keep a secret. I have 
a public duty to perform; the liberty of my men can 
be Imperiled by a careless word." 

The widow of a Ku Klux captain tells me that one 
night, when her husband was absent on duty in a town 
where whites were in terror because the negroes were 
threatening to burn it, her own house was fired. She 
was in bed, her new-born baby at her side ; stealthy steps 
were heard under her window. Her old black mauma 
was afraid to go to the window and look out. There was 
a smell of fire ; the mauma ran to the door and shrieked 
alarm. A shout answered from the cellar, where a 
faithful negro man-servant was putting out flames. He 
had let the Incendiaries go away thinking their purpose 
fulfilled. The returning husband, sorely perplexed, 
said : " I do not see how I can do my duty by my family 
and the public. I must give up my Klan." "No," 
she answered. " All have to take turns in leaving their 
own unprotected. I let you go into the army. Some 



SECRET SOCIETIES 273 

one must lead, and your men will not follow and obey 
any one else as they will you." He had been their cap- 
tain in the Confederate Army. 

To a Loyal League jury or magistrate a prisoner on 
trial had but to give the League signal to secure 
acquittal. A convicted and sentenced criminal would 
be pardoned by a Loyal League Governor. Klans took 
administration of justice into their own hands because 
courts were ineffective. In a den, regularly established 
and conducted, a man would be tried by due process 
before judge and jury, with counsel appointed for 
defense; evidence would be taken, the case would be 
argued; the jury would render verdict; the judge would 
dismiss the case or pronounce sentence. The man on 
trial might or might not be present. A Ku Klux captain 
tells me that great effort was made to give fair trials; 
acquittals were more frequent than convictions. But when 
the court imposed sentence, sentence was carried out. 

In the hill country of South Carolina, a one-armed 
ex-Confederate, a " poor white," made a scanty living 
for his large family by hauling. Once, on a lonely road 
when his load was whiskey, he was surrounded by negro 
soldiers, who killed him, took possession of the whiskey 
and drank it. Ring-leaders were arrested and lodged in 
jail; some were spirited away to Columbia and released; 
a plan was afoot to free the rest, among them the negro 
captain who had boasted of his crime, and flouted the 
whites with their powerlessness to punish him. The 
prison was surrounded one night by silent, black-robed 
horsemen on black-draped horses moving without sound; 
jailer and guards were overpowered; cells entered; 
prisoners tried — if proceedings interrupted by confes- 
sions and cries for mercy can be called trial. Sentences 
were pronounced. The black-robed, black-masked circle 
chanted " Dies Irs, Dies Ilia." The town awoke from 



274 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

a night of seeming peace and silence to behold dead 
bodies swinging from the trees.* 

The Stevens Mystery, of Yanceyville, N. C, has 
never been unravelled; the $5,000 reward which Presi- 
dent Grant offered for answer to the question, "Who 
killed Stevens?" was never won, though skilled detect- 
ives tried for it. Stevens was a scalawag. He achieved 
his sobriquet, " Chicken Stevens," through being chased 
out of his native county for stealing chickens. One of 
his adherents, when quite drunk, said before an audience 
of two thousand negroes: "Stevens stole chickens; 
that elected him to the Legislature; if he steals turkeys, 
it will elect him to Congress." The pleasantry was 
cheered to the echo. Stevens was charged with insti- 
gating riots and barn-burnings. He received a mystic 
warning to leave the country. He did not go. 

One day, while court was in full session, he was seen 
in the Court Room, in conversation with several people ; 
was seen to leave in amicable company with a citizen 
who parted with him and went out by the street door, 
while Stevens entered a county office where clerks were 
busy; several persons recalled seeing and speaking to 
him here, but nobody could remember seeing him alive 
afterwards. Yet hall and offices were thronged with 
his adherents. He was soon missed by the negroes who 
set a guard around the building. Next day he was 
found in the Grand Jury Room, sitting bolt upright, 
dead, strangled or with his throat cut, I forget which. 
This room opened on the hall through which a stream 
of people, white and black, had been passing all day; 
a negro cabin commanded a view of the window; a 
negro janitor held the key. 



* This case was used by Celina E. Means in " Thirty- four Years; 
The Stevens case is misused by Tourgee in " A Fool's Errand." 



SECRET SOCIETIES 275 

KIrke's cut-throats, sent down by Governor Holden, 
arrested prominent citizens and carried them to Raleigh. 
No evidence for conviction could ever be found, and 
they were liberated. Stevens' death has been charged 
to Ku Klux; also, to his confederates, who, it is said, 
received instructions from headquarters to " kill off 
Stevens," meaning politically, which they construed 
literally. I have been told that one of the slayers is 
living and that at his death, a true statement will be 
published showing who killed Stevens and how. 

These stories are sufficient to show the good and the 
evil of Ku Klux; there is public peril in any secret order 
which attempts to administer justice. Uniform and 
methods employed to justifiable or excusable ends by one 
set of people were employed to ends utterly Indefensible 
by another. The Radicals were quick to profit by Ku 
Klux methods; and much was done under the name 
and guise that the Klan did not do. Yet, in its own 
ranks were men reckless, heedless, and wicked, avengers 
of personal grudges. - 

The Invisible Empire, as the Klan was called in its 
organisation in 1867 under the leadership of Grand 
Wizard, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and with 
men like General Dudley Du Bose, of Georgia, for 
division commanders, had a code that might have served 
for Arthur's Round Table. Its first object was "To 
protect the weak, innocent and defenseless from the 
indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the 
violent and the brutal; to relieve the injured and 
oppressed, to succour the suffering and unfortunate, 
especially the widows and orphans of Confederate sol- 
diers." Its second: "To protect and defend the Con- 
stitution of the United States and all laws passed in 
conformity thereto." Its third: "To aid and assist 
in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to pro- 



276 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tect the people from unlawful seizure and from trial 
except by their peers In conformity to the laws of the 
land." 

" Unlawful seizure" was practiced In South Carolina, 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and other States, where 
white men would be arrested on blank warrants or no 
warrant at all; carried long distances from home, held 
for weeks or months; and then, as happened In some 
famous cases, be released without ever having been 
brought to trial; in other Instances, they were beaten; 
in others, committed to penitentiaries; in others, it was 
as if the earth had swallowed them up — they have never 
been heard from. Some agency was surely needed to 
effect ends which the Klan named as object of its exist- 
ence; that the Klan was effective of these ends in great 
degree no one conversant with facts will deny, nor will 
they deny that "Tom-foolery" and not violence was its 
most frequent weapon. 

Where Ku Klux rode around, negroes ceased to ven- 
ture out after dark. Some told tales of ghastly noc- 
turnal visitors who plead for a drink of water, saying, 
" Dee ain' had nay drap sence de Yankees killed 'em 
at Gettysburg. An' den, suh, when you han' 'em. er 
gode-full, dee say: 'Kin you let me have de bucket? 
I'se jes come f'om hell an' I'se scotchin' in my Insides.' 
An' den, mun, dat ar hant des drink down dat whole 
bucket at a gulp, an' I hyern It sizzlin' down his gullet 
des same ez you done flung It on de coals ! I ain' gwi 
fool longer nothin' lak dat ! Some folks say It's white 
folks tryin' tub skeer we-all, but, suh, I b'lleve it's 
hants — er Ole Satan one ! " Terrible experience It was 
when "A hant — or suppin nur — wid er hade mighty 
nigh high ez er chlmley ud meet a nigger In de road an 
say: 'I come f'om torment (hell) tub shake ban's wid 
you ! ' An' de nigger — he didn' wanter do It, but he 



SECRET SOCIETIES 277 

feared tuh 'fuse — he tooken shuck han's wid dat ar hant, 
an' dat ar han' what he shuck was a skelumton's — de 
bones fa'r rattle ! " 

The regular Ku Klux costume was a white gown or 
sheet, and a tall, conical pasteboard hat; for the horse 
a white sheet and foot-mufflers. Black gown, mask and 
trappings, and red ones, were also worn; bones, skulls 
of men and beasts, with foxfire for eyes, nose and 
mouth, were expedients. A rubber tube underneath 
robe or sheet, or a rubber or leather bag, provided for 
miraculous consumption of water. In negro tales of 
supernatural appearances, latitude must be allowed for 
imagination. A Ku Klux captain tells me that one 
night as he rose up out of a graveyard, one of his 
negroes passed with a purloined gobbler in possession; 
he touched the negro on the shoulder. The negro 
dropped the turkey and flew like mad, and the turkey 
flew, too. Next morning, the darkey related the expe- 
rience to his master (omitting the fowl). "How tall 
was that hant, George? " " Des high ez a tree, Mars- 
ter! an' de han' it toch my shoulder wid burnt me lak 
fire. I got mutton-suet on de place." " I was about 
three feet taller than my natural self that night," says 
Captain Lea. George wore a plaster on his arm and 
for some time complained that it was " pa'lised." 

Klans and Union Leagues came to an end conjointly 
when carpet-bag rule was expiring. The Invisible 
Empire was dissolved formally by order of the Grand 
Wizard, March, 1869. It had never been a close 
organisation, and "dens" and counterfeit "dens" con- 
tinued in existence here and there for awhile, working 
good and evil. Ku Klux Investigations Instituted by 
State authorities and the Federal Government were trav- 
esties of justice. Rewards offered for evidence to con- 
vict caused innocent men to be hunted down, arrested, 



278 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

imprisoned, and on false accusation and suborned testi- 
mony, convicted and committed to State prisons or sent 
to Sing Sing. The jails of Columbia, at one time, over- 
flowed with the first gentlemen of the state, thrown into 
filthy cells, charged with all manner of crimes. 

The Union League incited to murder and arson, 
whipped negroes and whites. But I never heard of 
Union Leaguers being tried for being Union Leaguers 
as Ku Klux were tried for being Ku Klux. There are 
no Southerners to contend that the Klan and its meas- 
ures were justifiable or excusable except on the grounds 
that the conditions of the times called for them; 
informed Northerners will concede that the evils of the 
day justified or excused the Klan's existence. For my 
part, I believe that this country owes a heavy debt to 
its noiseless white horsemen, shades of its troubled past.* 

* See " Documents Illustrative of the Reconstruction Period," by 
Walter L. Fleming, Professor of History, West Virginia University ; 
also articles in the "Atlantic Monthly." 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 



CHAPTER XXV 

The Southern Ballot-Box 

Free negroes could vote in North Carolina until 1835, 
when a Constitutional Convention, not without division 
of sentiment, abolished negroid franchise on the ground 
that it was an evil. Thereafter, negroes first voted in 
the South in 1866, when the "Prince of Carpet-Bag- 
gers," Henry C. Warmouth, who had been dismissed 
from the Federal Army, conferred the privilege in a 
bogus election ; he had a charity-box attachment to every 
ballot-box and a negro dropping a ballot into one had 
to drop fifty cents into the other, contributions paying 
Warmouth's expenses as special delegate to Washing- 
ton, where Congress refused to recognize him. He 
returned to Louisiana and in two years was governor 
and in three was worth a quarter of a million dollars 
and a profitable autograph. " It cost me more," said 
W. S. Scott, "to get his signature to a bill than to get 
the bill through the Legislature " — a striking compari- 
son, for to get a bill through this Legislature of which 
Warmouth said, "there is but one honest man in It," 
was costly process. Warmouth said of himself, " I 
don't pretend to be honest, but only as honest as any- 
body in politics." 

Between the attitude of the army and the politicians 
on the negro question, General Sherman drew this com- 
parison: "We all felt sympathy for the negroes, but 
of a different kind from that of Mr. Stanton, which 
was not of pure humanity but of politics. ... I did 
not dream that the former slaves would be suddenly, 

281 



282 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

without preparation, manufactured into voters. . . 
I doubted the wisdom of at once clothing them 
with the elective franchise . . . and reahsed the 
national loss in the death of Mr. Lincoln, who had long 
pondered over the difficult questions involved." 

April Fool's Day, 1870, a crowd clustered around 
General Grant in the White House ; a stroke of his pen 
was to proclaim four millions of people, literate or 
illiterate, civilised or uncivilised, ready or unready, 
voters. When the soldier had signed the instrument 
politicians had prepared for him, the proclamation 
announcing that the Fifteenth Amendment had been 
added to the Constitution of the United States by the 
ratification of twenty-nine, some one begged for the 
historic pen, and he silently handed it over. One who 
was present relates: "Somebody exclaimed, 'Now 
negroes can vote anywhere 1 ', and a venerable old gen- 
tleman In the crowd cried out, 'Well, gentlemen, you 
will all be d — d sorry for this ! ' The President's father- 
in-law, Dent, Sr., was said to be the speaker." In 
Richmond, the Dent family had seen a good deal of 
freedmen. Negroes voted In 1867, over two years 
prior to this, Congress by arbitrary act vesting them 
with a right not conferred by Federal or State Consti- 
tutions. They voted for delegates to frame the new 
State Constitutions ; then on their own right to vote 1— 
this right forming a plank in said Constitutions. 

The Southern ballot-box was the new toy of the Ward 
of the Nation ; the vexation of housekeepers and farm- 
ers, the despair of statesmen, patriots, and honest men 
generally. Elections were preceded by political meet- 
ings, often incendiary In character, which all one's ser- 
vants must attend. With election day, every voting 
precinct became a picnic-ground, to say no worse. 
Negroes went to precincts overnight and camped out. 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 283 

Morning revealed reinforcements arriving. All sexes 
and ages came afoot, in carts, in wagons, as to a fair 
or circus. Old women set up tables and spread out 
ginger-cakes and set forth buckets of lemonade. One 
famous campaign manager had all-night picnics in the 
woods, with bonfires, barrels of liquor, darkeys sitting 
around drinking, fiddling, playing the banjo, dancing. 
The instant polls opened they were marched up and 
voted. Negroes almost always voted in companies. A 
leader, standing on a box, handed out tickets as they 
filed past. All were warned at Loyal Leagues to vote 
no ticket other than that given by the leader, usually 
a local coloured preacher who could no more read the 
ballots he distributed than could the recipients. Fights 
were plentiful as ginger-cakes. The all-day picnic 
ended only with closing of polls, and not always then, 
darkeys hanging around and carrying scrapping and 
jollification into the night. 

How their white friends would talk and talk the day 
before election to butlers, coachmen, hoers and plowers, 
on the back porch or at the woodpile or the stables; 
and how darkeys would promise, " Yessuh, I gwi vote 
lak you say." And how their old masters would return 
from the polls next day with heads hung down, and the 
young ex-masters would return mad, and saying, "This 
country is obliged to go to the devil ! " 

There were a great many trying phases of the situa- 
tion. As for example: Conservatives were running 
General Eppa Hunton for Congress. Among the 
General's coloured friends was an old negro, Julian, 
his ward of pity, who had no want that he did not bring 
to the General. Election day, he sought the General at 
the polls, saying: "Mars Eppie, I want some shingles 
fuh my roof." " You voted for me, Julian ? " " Naw, 
naw, Mars Eppie, I voted de straight Publikin ticket, 



284 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

suh." He got the shingles. When "Mars Eppie" 
was elected, Julian came smiling: " Now, Mars Eppie, 
bein' how as you's goin' to Congress, I 'lowed you 
mought have a leetle suppin tuh gimme." A party of 
young lawyers tried to persuade their negro servant 
to vote with them. "Naw, naw," he said. " De 
debbul mought git me. Dar ain't but two parties named 
in de Bible — de Publikins an' Sinners. I gwi vote wid 
de Publikins." 

In everything but politics, the negro still reposed 
trust in " Ole Marster;" his aches, pains, "mis'ries," 
family and business troubles, were all for " Ole Mars- 
ter," not for the carpet-baggers. The latter feared he 
would take "Ole Marster's" advice when he went to 
the polls, so they wrought in him hatred and distrust. 
The negro is not to blame for his political blunders. 
It would never have occurred to him to ask for the 
ballot; as greatness upon some, so was the franchise 
untimely thrust upon him, and he has much to live down 
that would never have been charged against him else. 

"Brownlow's armed cohorts, negroes principally," 
one of my father's friends wrote from Tennessee In 
1867, "surround our polls. All the unlettered blacks 
go up, voting on questions of State Interest which they 
do not In the least understand, while Intelligent, tax- 
paying whites, who must carry the consequences of their 
acts, are not allowed to vote. I stayed on my plantation 
on election day and my negroes went to the polls. So 
it was all around me — white men at home, darkeys off 
running the government. Negro women went, too; 
my wife was her own cook and chambermaid — and 
butler, for the butler went." 

Educated, able, patriotic men, eager to heal the 
breaches of war, anxious to restore the war-wrecked 
fortunes of Impoverished States, would have to stand 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 285 

idly by, themselves disfranchised, and see their old and 
faithful negroes marched up to the polls like sheep to 
the shambles and voted by, and for the personal advance- 
ment of, political sharpers who had no solid interest in 
the State or its people, white or black. It would be no 
less trying when, instead of this meek, good-natured 
line, they would find masses of insolent, armed blacks 
keeping whites from the polls, or receive tragic evidence 
that ambushed guards were commanding with Win- 
chesters all avenues to the ballot-box. Not only 
*' Secesh" were turned back, but Union men, respectable 
Republicans, also; as in Big Creek, Missouri, when a 
citizen who had lost four sons in the Union Army was 
denied right to vote. "Kill him! kill him!" cried 
negroes when at Hudson Station, Virginia, a negro cast 
a Conservative ticket. 

"This county," says a Southerner now occupying a 
prominent place in educational work for the negro, 
"had about 1,600 negro majority at the time the tissue 
ballot came into vogue. It was a war measure. The 
character and actions of the men who rode to power on 
the negro ballot compelled us to devise means of pro- 
tection and defense. Even the negroes wanting to vote 
with us dared not. One of my old servants, who sin- 
cerely desired to follow my advice and example in the 
casting of his ballot, came to me on the eve of election 
and sadly told me he could not. 'Marster,' he said, 
' I been tol' dat I'll be drummed outer de chu'ch ef I 
votes de Conserv'tive ticket.' A negro preacher said: 
' Marse Clay, dee'll take away my license tub preach ef 
I votes de white folks' ticket.' I did not cease to 
reproach myself for inducing one negro to vote with 
me when I learned that on the death of his child soon 
afterwards, his people showed no sympathy, gave no 
help, and that he had to make the coffin and dig the 



286 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

grave himself. I would have gone to his relief had I 
known, but he was too terrorised to come to me. I 
did not seek to influence negro votes at the next elec- 
tion; I adopted other means to effect the Issue desired." 

" If the whites succeed at the polls, they will put you 
back into slavery. If we succeed, we will have the 
lands of the whites confiscated and give every one of 
you forty acres and a mule." This scare and bribe 
was used in every Southern State; used over and over; 
negroes only ceased to give credence when after Cleve- 
land's inauguration they found themselves still free. 
On announcement of Cleveland's election, many negroes, 
prompt to choose masters, hurried to former owners. 
The butler of Dr. J. L. M. Curry (administrator of the 
Peabody Education Fund), appeared in distress before 
Dr. Curry, pleading that, as he now must belong to 
some one, Dr. Curry would claim him. An old 
"mammy" in Mayor Ellyson's family, distracted lest 
she might be torn from her own white folks and assigned 
to strangers, put up piteous appeal to her ex-owners. 

From the political debauchery of the day, men of the 
old order shrank appalled. Even when the test-oath 
qualification was no longer exacted and disabilities were 
removed, many Southerners would not for a time touch 
the unclean thing; then they voted as with averted faces, 
not because they had faith in or respect for the process, 
but because younger men told them the country's salva- 
tion demanded thus much of them. If a respectable 
man was sent to the Legislature or Congress, he felt 
called upon to explain or apologise to a stranger who 
might not understand the circumstances. His relatives 
hastened to make excuse. "Uncle Ambrose is in the 
Legislature, but he is honest," Uncle Ambrose's nieces 
and nephews hurried to tell before the suspicious " Hon- 
ourable" prefixed to his name brought judgment on a 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 287 

good old man who had Intended no harm, but had got 
into the Legislature by accident rather than by design — 
who was there, in fact, by reason of circumstances over 
which he had no control. The few representative men 
who got into these mixed assemblies had difficulty in 
making themselves felt. Judge Simonton, of the 
United States Circuit Court (once President of the 
Charleston Library Association, Chairman of the Board 
of School Commissioners, bearer of many civic dignities 
besides), was member of a reconstruction legislature. 
He has said: "To get a bill passed, I would have to 
persuade a negro to present it. It would receive no 
attention presented by me." 

Negroes were carried by droves from one county to 
another, one State to another, and voted over and over 
wherever white plurality was feared. Other tricks were 
to change polling-places suddenly, Informing the negroes 
and not the whites; to scratch names from registration 
lists and substitute others. Whites would walk miles 
to a registration place to find it closed; negroes, pri- 
vately advised, would have registered and gone. When 
men had little time to give to politics, patriotism was 
robust If it could devote days to the siege of a Registra- 
tion Board, trying to catch it In place In spite of itself. 

The Southerner's loathing for politics, his despair, 
his Inertia, increased evils. " Let the Yankees have all 
the niggers they want," he was prone to say. " Let 
them fill Congress with niggers. The only cure Is a 
good dose 1 " But with absolute ruin staring him In the 
face, he woke with a mighty awakening. Taxpayers' 
Conventions issued "Prayers" to the public, to State 
Governments, to the Central Government; they raised 
out of the poverty of the people small sums to send 
committees to Washington ; and these committees were 
forestalled by Radical State Governments who, with 



288 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

open State Treasuries to draw upon, sent committees 
ahead, prejudicing the executive ear and closing it to 
appeal. 

The most lasting wrong reconstruction inflicted upon 
the South was in the inevitable political demoralisation 
of the white man. No one could regard the ballot-box 
as the voice of the people, as a sacred thing. It was 
a plaything, a jack-in-the-box for the darkeys, a con- 
jurer's trick that brought drinks, tips and picnics. It 
was the carpet-bagger's stepping-stone to power. The 
votes of a multitude were for sale. The votes of a 
multitude were to be had by trickery. It was a poor 
patriot who would not save his State by pay or play. 
Taxation without representation, again; the tissue 
ballot — a tiny silken thing — was one of the instruments 
used for heaving tea — negro plurality — into the deep 
sea. 

"As for me," says a patriot of the period, "I bless 
the distinguished Virginian who invented the tissue 
ballot. It was of more practical utility than his glorious 
sword. I am free to say I used many tissue ballots. 
My old pastor (he was eighty and as true and simple 
a soul as ever lived) voted I don't know how many 
at one time, didn't know he was doing it, just took the 
folded ballot I handed him and dropped it in, didn't 
want to vote at all." Others besides this speaker 
assume that General Mahone Invented the tissue ballot, 
but General Mahone's intimates say he did not, and 
that to ask who invented the tissue ballot is to ask who 
struck Billy Patterson. Democrats waive the honour 
in favor of Republicans, Republicans in favor of Demo- 
crats; nobody wants to wear it as a decoration. For 
my part, I think It did hard work and much good work, 
and quietly what else might have cost shedding of blood. 

"We had a trying time," one citizen relates, " when 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 289 

negroes gained possession of the polls and officered us. 
Things got simply unendurable ; we determined to take 
our town from under negro rule. One means to that 
end was the tissue ballot. Dishonest? Will you tell 
me what honesty there was, what reverence for the 
ballot-box, in standing idly by and seeing a horde of 
negroes who could not read the tickets they voted, cram 
our ballot-boxes with pieces of paper ruinous to us and 
them? We had to save ourselves by our wits. Some 
funny things happened. I was down at the precinct on 
Bolingbrook Street when the count was announced, and 
heard an old darkey exclaim : * I knows dat one hun- 
derd an' ninety-seben niggers voted in dis distric', an' 
dar ain' but th'ee Radicule ballots in de box ! I dunno 
huccum dat. I reckon de Radicule man gin out de 
wrong ones. I knows he gin me two an' I put bofe uv 
'em in de box.' " 

Tissue ballots were introduced into South Carolina 
by a Republican named Butts, who used them against 
Mackey, another Republican, his rival for Congres- 
sional honours; there was no Democratic candidate. 
Next election Democrats said: " Republicans are using 
tissue ballots; we must fight the devil with fire." A 
package arrived one night at a precinct whereof I know. 
The local Democratic leader said: "I don't like this 
business." He was told: "The Committee sent them 
up from the city; they say the other side will use them 
and that we've got to use them." 

According to election law, when ballots polled 
exceeded registration lists, a blindfolded elector would 
put his hand in the box and withdraw until ballots and 
lists tallied. Many tissue ballots could be folded into 
one and voted as a single ballot; a little judicious agita- 
tion after they were in the box would shake them apart. 
A tissue ballot could be told by its feel; an elector 



290 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

would withdraw as sympathy or purchase ran. Voting 
over at the precinct mentioned, the box was taken accord- 
ing to regulations into a closed room and opened. 
Democrats and Republicans had each a manager. The 
Republican ran his hand into the box and gave it a stir; 
straightway it became so full it couldn't be shut, ballots 
falling apart and multiplying themselves. The Repub- 
lican laughed: "I have heard of self-raising flour. 
These are self-raising ballots! Butts' own game!" 
That precinct went Democratic. 

So went other precincts. Republicans had failed on 
tissues. A Congressional Committee, composed of 
Senators McDonald of Indiana, Randolph of New 
Jersey, and Teller of Colorado, came down to inquire 
into elections. Republicans charged tissue ballots on 
Democrats. But, alas ! one of the printers put on the 
stand testified that the Republicans had ordered many 
thousand tissue ballots of him, but he had failed to 
have them on time ! 

There were other devices. Witness, the story of the 
Circus and the Voter. " A circus saved us. Each negro 
registering received a certificate to be presented at the 
polls. Our people got a circus to come through and 
made a contract with the managers. The circus let it 
be known that registration certificates would be accepted 
instead of admission tickets, or entrance fees, we agree- 
ing to redeem at admission price all certificates turned 
over to us. The arrangement made everybody happy — 
none more than the negroes, who got a better picnic 
than usual and saw a show besides. The circus had 
tremendous crowds and profited greatly. And one of 
the most villainous tickets ever foisted upon a people 
was killed quietly and effectually." 

An original scheme was resorted to in the Black Belt 
of Mississippi in order to carry the day. An important 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 291 

local election was to be held, and the whites felt that 
they could not afford to lose. But how to keep out the 
black vote was a serious question. Finally, a bright 
young fellow suggested a plan. For a week preceding 
election, he collected, by paying for it, negro hair from 
barbers serving negroes, and he got butchers to save 
waste blood from slaughter-pens. The night before 
the election, committees went out about a mile on every 
road and path leading to the town, and scattering wool 
and blood generously, "pawed up the ground" with 
foot-tracks and human body imprints. Every evidence 
of furious scuffle was faithfully carried out. The day 
dawned beautiful and bright, but not a black vote was 
cast — not a negro was to be seen. Hundreds had quit 
farm-work to come to vote, but stopped aghast at the 
appalling signs of such an awful battle, and fled to their 
homes in prompt and precipitate confusion. 

I heard a good man say, with humour and sadness, 
" I have bought many a negro vote, bought them three 
for a quarter. To buy was their terms. There was 
no other way. And we couldn't help ourselves." 
" There were Federal guards here and they knew just 
what we were doing," another relates, "knew we were 
voting our way any and everybody who came up to vote, 
had seen the Radicals at the same thing and knew just 
what strait we were in. I voted a dead man knowingly 
when some one came up and gave his name. I did the 
same thing unknowingly. I heard one man ask of a 
small funeral procession, ' Who's dead? ' ' Hush ! ' said 
his companion, ' It's the man that's just voted ! ' " "I 
never voted a dead man," a second manager chimes in, 
"but I voted a man that was In Europe. His father 
was right in front of the ballot-box, telling about a letter 
just received from his son, when up comes somebody in 
that son's name and votes. The old man was equal to 



292 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the occasion. * Why, my dear boy ! ' — had never seen 
the other before — ' so glad you got back in time to cast 
your vote ! ' and off they walked, arms around each 
other." 

"The way we saved our city," one says, "was by 
buying the Radical manager of the election. We were 
standing right under the statue of George Washington 
when we paid the $500 he demanded. These things 
are all wrong, but there was no other way. Some stood 
off and kept clean hands. But a thing had to be done, 
and we did it, not minding the theoretical dirt. The 
negroes were armed with ballots and bayonets, and the 
bayonets were at our breasts. Our lands were taxed 
until we were letting our homes go because we could 
not pay the taxes, while corrupt officials were waxing 
fat. We had to take our country from under negro 
rule any way we could." It was not wounds of war 
that the Southerner found it hard to forget and forgive, 
but the humiliation put upon him afterward, and his 
own enforced self-degradation. 

I do not wish to be understood as saying that the 
Southerner re-won control of local government by only 
such methods as described; I emphasize the truth that, 
at times, he did use them and had to use them, because 
herein was his deep moral wound. He employed better 
methods as he could; for instance, when every white 
man would bind himself to persuade one negro to vote 
with him, to bring this negro to the polls, and protect 
him from Radical punishment. Also, he availed him- 
self of weak spots in the enemy's armour. Thus in 
Hancock County, Georgia, in 1870, Judge Linton 
Stephens challenged voters who had not paid poll-tax, 
and, when election managers would not heed, had them 
arrested and confined, while their places were supplied 
and the election proceeded. The State Constitution, 



THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 293 

framed by the Radicals themselves, called for this poll- 
tax — a dollar a head — and its application to " educa- 
tional purposes." The extravagant Radical regime, 
falling short of bribing money, remitted the poll-tax in 
lieu thereof. Judge Stephens caught them. Governor 
Bullock disapproved his action; United States Marshal 
Seaford haled him before United States Commissioner 
Swayze. The Federal Grand Jury ignored the charge 
against him, and that was the end of it. The Judge 
had, however, been put to expense, trouble, and loss 
of time. 



THE WHITE CHILD 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The White Child 

Upon the Southern white child of due age for schooling 
the effects of war fell with cruel force. 

The ante-bellum planter kept a tutor or governess 
or both for his children ; his neighbours' children some- 
times attended the school which he maintained for his 
own. Thus, were ^ sons and daughters prepared for 
academy and college, university, finishing school. Pri- 
vate schools were broken up quite generally by the war. 
It became quite the custom for the mother or an elder 
sister to fill the position of instructor in families on big 
plantations. Such schooling as this was none too plen- 
tiful in rural Dixie just after the war. Sisters of age 
and capacity to teach did not stay in one family forever. 
Sometimes they got married; though many a beautiful 
and brilliant girl sacrificed her future for little brothers 
and sisters dependent upon her for mental food. The 
great mass of Southern women had, however, to drop 
books for broomsticks ; to turn from pianos and guitars 
and make music with kettles and pans. Children had to 
help. With labour entirely disorganised, in the direst 
poverty and the grasp of such political convulsions as 
no people before them had ever endured, the hour was 
strenuous beyond description, and it is no wonder if the 
claims of children to education were often overlooked, 
or, in cruel necessity, set aside. 

Sometimes neighbours clubbed together and opened 
an "old field school," paying the teacher out of a com- 
mon fund subscribed for the purpose; again, a man 

297 



298 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

who could teach went around, drummed up pupils at 
so much a head, opened a school and took chances on 
collection of dues. Many neighbourhoods were too 
poor for even such expedients; to get bread itself was 
a struggle to which children must lend labour. The 
seventies found few or no rural districts without a quota 
of half-grown lads and lassies unable to read and write. 
It was no strange thing to see little white boys driving 
a plow when they were so small they had to lift their 
hands high to grasp the handles; or little white girls 
minding cows, trotting to springs or wells with big 
buckets to fill, bending over wash-tubs, and working in 
the crops. 

The public school system was not put In operation at 
once, and If It had been, could not have met conditions 
of the hour. Planters lived far apart; roads in some 
sections long unworked. In others lately plowed by 
cannons or wagon-trains, were often Impassable for 
teams^ — If people were so fortunate as to have teams; 
and much more so for little feet; then, too, the reign 
of fear was on; highways and by-ways were Infested 
by roving negroes; many were harmless; would. Indeed, 
do a child a kindness; but some were dangerous; the 
negro, his own master now, was free to get drunk at 
other times than Christmas and corn-shucking. An 
argument against the success of the public as of the *' old 
field " school, lay in the strong spirit of caste animating 
the high-born Southerner. It was against his grain to 
send his children — particularly his daughters — to school 
with Tom, Dick and Harry; It did not please him for 
them to make close associates of children In a different 
walk of life — the children of the "poor white trash." 
This spirit of excluslveness marks people of position 
today, wherever found. Caste prejudice was almost 
Inoperative, however, having small chance to pick and 



THE WHITE CHILD 299 

choose. Gaunt poverty closed the doors of learning 
against the white child of the South, while Northern 
munificence was flinging them wide to the black. 

Soon as war ended, schools for negroes were organ- 
ised in all directions with Government funds or funds 
supplied by Northern charity; and under Northern 
tutelage — a tutelage contributing to prejudice between 
the races. These institutions had further the effect of 
aggravating the labour problem — a problem so des- 
perate for the Southern farmer that he could not turn 
from it to give his own child a chance for intellectual 
life. 

He was not pleasantly moved by touching stories that 
went North of class-rooms where middle-age, hoary- 
head and pickaninny sat on the same bench studying the 
same page, all consumed with ambition to master the 
alphabet. It did not enter into these accounts that 
the plows and hoes of a sacked country had been 
deserted for the ABC book. He resented the whole 
tendency of the time, which was to make the negro 
despise manual labour and elevate book-learning above 
its just position. Along with these appealing stories 
did not go pictures of fields where white women and 
children in harness dragged plows through furrows; 
the artists did not portray white children in the field wist- 
fully watching black children trooping by to school; 
had such pictures gone North in the sixties and seventies, 
some would have said, so bitter was the moment, " Just 
retribution for the whites," but not the majority. The 
great-hearted men and women of the North would have 
come to the rescue. 

*• There were two reasons for Northern indifference 
to the education of the Southern white child," an embit- 
tered educator says; "natural prejudice against the 
people with whom they had been at war, and the feeling 



300 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

that the negro had been persecuted — had been ' snatched 
from his happy home in Africa' (they forgot they had 
done more than a full share of the snatching) ; brought 
over here and sold into slavery (they forgot they had 
done more than a full share of the selling) , and thereby 
stripped of all his brilliant opportunities of life in Africa 
and the advancement he might else have had; the 
Southern white man, instead of sending him to college, 
had made him work in the fields; to even up matters 
now, the negro must go to college and the white man 
work in the fields. This was the will of Providence 
and they its executors." 

The two reasons given — undue prejudice against the 
Southern white and overweening pity for the negro — 
were the grand disposing cause of Northern indifference 
to the white child and abnormal sensibility about every- 
thing concerning the black. But at the bottom was 
ignorance of actual conditions here. The one story was 
put before them, the other was not. It was not to the 
interests of Freedmen's Bureau agents to let the other 
be known; and, of course, the business of teachers and 
missionaries was to make out the strongest case possible 
in order to draw funds for negro education. The 
negro's ignorance, in a literary sense, could hardly be 
exaggerated, nor his poverty; but he was a laborer and 
an artisan and held recuperative power in his hands. 

It was not in the thought of the proud old planter 
to cry for help; it was his habit to give, not take; he 
and his wife and children made as little parade as pos- 
sible of their extremities to their nearest neighbour; 
such evidences as would not down were laughed over 
with a humour inherent as their spirit of independence. 

In 1867, Mrs. Sarah Hughes said: "Since leaving 
Kentucky last December, I have travelled many thou- 
sand miles in the South; I have seen spreading out 



THE WHITE CHILD 301 

before me in sad panorama solitary chimneys, burned 
buildings, walls of once happy homes, grounds and gar- 
dens grown with weeds and briers; groups of sad 
human faces ; gaunt women and children ; old, helpless 
men; young men on crutches, and without arms, sick, 
sad, heart-broken. Words cannot describe the desti- 
tute condition of the orphaned children. It excites my 
deepest commiseration. The children of the dead sol- 
diers are wandering beggars, hand in hand with want. 
Except in large cities, there are no schools or homes for 
the fatherless. An attractive academy has been built 
near Atlanta by citizens of Northern cities for the chil- 
dren of the freedmen; and it is in a flourishing condi- 
tion," etc. An editorial in a newspaper of the day 
reads: "The white children of the South are growing 
up in pitiful neglect, and we are wrong to permit it." 

General Pope, commanding Georgia, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi and Florida, wrote General Grant, April 14, 
1867: "It may be safely said that the remarkable 
progress made in the education of these people (the 
negroes), aided by noble charitable institutions of 
Northern societies and individuals, finds no parallel in 
the history of mankind. If the white people exhibit the 
same indisposition to be educated that they do now, five 
years will have transferred intelligence and education 
so far as the masses are concerned, to the coloured people 
of the district." Does it not seem incredible that an 
Anglo-Saxon should regard with complacency a situa- 
tion involving the supreme peril of his race, should con- 
sider it cause of congratulation? The state of affairs 
was urged as argument that the negro was or quickly 
would be qualified for exercise of the franchise with 
which he had been invested and his late master deprived. 

The Sunday School acquired new interest and signifi- 
cance. I remember one that used to be held in summer 



302 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

under the trees near a blacksmith's shop, in which Web- 
ster's Spelling Book divided attention with the New 
Testament. The school was gotten up by a planter in 
kindly effort to do what he could for the poor children 
in the neighbourhood. There were grown girls in it 
who spelled out rather than read Bible verses. On 
weekdays, the planter's daughter received and taught 
free of charge a class of poor whites. A Georgia 
friend, who was a little boy at the close of the war, 
tells me : " The Sunday Schools made more impression 
upon me than any other institution of the period. 
There were, I suppose, Sunday Schools in plenty before 
and during the war, but somehow they seemed a new 
thing thereafter." 

This movement was at once an expression of a revival 
of religious sentiment (there was a strong revival move- 
ment at the time), the desire for social intercourse, and 
an effort to advance the educational interests of the 
young, who in countless instances were deprived of ordi- 
nary means of instruction. Hon Henry G. Turner 
wrote of the conditions of that day : " Cities and great 
tracts of country were in ashes. Colleges and schools 
were silent, teachers without pupils, pupils without 
teachers. Even the great charities and asylums were 
unable to take care of lunatics, the deaf and the 
blind . . . Repudiation by States of bonds, treas- 
ury notes, and other obligations issued during the war 
reduced to penury thousands of widows and orphans, 
and many people too old to start life over again." 
Congress demanded this repudiation at the point of the 
bayonet. 

The South was not unmindful of her orphans; there 
were early organised efforts such as the land was capa- 
ble of making; the churches led In many of these. And 
there were efforts of a lighter order, such as the bazaar 



THE WHITE CHILD 303 

which the Washington and Lee Association held in 
Norfolk. The Baltimore Society for the Liberal Edu- 
cation of Southern Children was a notable agency. 
Individual effort was not lacking. Few did more 
according to their might than Miss Emily V. Mason, 
who provided for many orphans gravitating towards 
her at a time when she was paying for her nieces' board 
with family silver, a spoon or a fork at a time. One of 
her most sympathetic aides was a Miss Chew, of the 
North, with whom during the entire war she had main- 
tained an affectionate correspondence begun In times 
of peace. Illustrative of a rather odd form of relief 
is this extract from a letter by Mrs. Lee to Miss Mason : 

" My dear Miss Em, did I ever write you about a 
benevolent lady at the North who is anxious to adopt 
two little ' rebel ' children, five or six years old — of a 
Confederate officer — and she writes General Lee to rec- 
ommend such a party to her. She wants them of gentle 
blood. I have no doubt there are a great many to 
whom such an offer would be acceptable. Do you know 
of any?" In regard to Baltimore's work, she says: 
" How can we ever repay our kind friends in Baltimore 
for all they have done for us ? " When the Confederate 
General, John B. Hood, died, he left a number of very 
young children in poor circumstances; one of their bene- 
factors was the Federal General McClellan, I have 
heard. 

Doubtless many hands were outstretched from the 
North in some such manner as is Indicated in Mrs. 
Lee's letter. Thousands would have extended help in 
every way had the truth been known. What the South- 
ern white child really needed, however, was the removal 
of an oppressive legislation which was throttling his 
every chance in life, and a more temperate view on the 
part of the dominant section of the negro question — a 



304 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

question that was pressing painfully at every point upon 
his present and future. He had a right to an equal 
chance in life with the negro. 

That quality in Northern people which made them 
pour out money for the freedmen, would have stirred 
their sense of justice to the white child had the situation 
been clear to them. One of the earliest homes for 
orphans of Confederate soldiers was established at 
Macon by William H. Appleton, of New York, at the 
suggestion of his friend, Bishop Beckwith, of Georgia. 
Vanderbilt and Tulane Universities, the Seney benefac- 
tions to Emory and Wesleyan Colleges, and other evi- 
dences of awakening interest in the South's white youth, 
will occur at once to my readers. Chief of all was the 
Peabody Fund, in which white and black had share. 
Dr. Sears, of Boston, first administrator, was sharply 
blamed by William Lloyd Garrison and others because 
he did not make mixed schools a condition of bestowal 
upon whites; his critics grew quiet when shown that, 
under the terms of the gift, such a course would divert 
the whole fund to white children. 

To illustrate white need: Late as 1899, I heard, 
through Miss Sergeant, Principal of the Girls' High 
School, Atlanta, of a white school in the Georgia moun- 
tains where one short shelf held all the books — one 
grammar, one arithmetic, one reader, one history, one 
geography, one spelling-book. Starting at the end of 
the first bench, a book would pass from hand to hand, 
each child studying a paragraph. There are schools of 
scrimped resources now, where young mountaineers 
make all sorts of sacrifices and trudge barefoot seem- 
ingly impossible distances to secure a little learning. 
Nobody in these communities dreams of calling for out- 
side help and sympathy, and when help Is tendered. It 
must be with the utmost circumspection and delicacy, 




Photograph by \'iaiielli, Italy 

MISS EMILY V. MASON 



THE WHITE CHILD 305 

or native pride is wounded and rejects. Appalachia is 
a region holding big game for people hunting chances 
to do good. 

The various Constitutional Conventions adopted 
public school systems for their commonwealths. In 
Virginia, it was not to go into operation until 187 1, 
after which there was to be as rapid extension as possible 
and full introduction into all counties by 1876. The 
convention made strenuous efforts, as did that of every 
other State, to force mixed schools, in which, had they 
succeeded, the white child's chance of an education 
would have suffered a new death. 

Early text-books used in public schools grated on the 
Southerner; they were put out by Northern publishing 
houses and gave views of American history which he 
thought unjust and untrue. The "Southern Opinion" 
printed this, August 3, 1867 : " In a book circulating in 
the South as history, this occurs : ' While the people of 
the North were rejoicing because the war was at an end, 
President Lincoln, one of the best men in the world, 
was cruelly murdered in Washington by a young man 
hired by the Confederates to do the wicked deed.' It 
calls Lee 'a perjured traitor;' says 'Sherman made a 
glorious march to the sea; ' prints ' Sheridan's Ride ' as 
a school recitation." To comprehension of the South- 
ern mind as it was then and is now in some who remem- 
ber, it is essential that we get its view of the " Ride " 
and the ''March.", 

" Have you seen a piece of poetry," a representative 
Southern woman wrote another in the fall of 1865, 
" called ' Sheridan's Ride'? If you can get it, do send 
it to me. I want to see if there isn't some one smart 
enough to reply to it and give a true version of that 
descent of armed ruffians upon store-rooms, stables, hen- 
roosts and ladies' trunks — even tearing the jewelry from 



3o6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

their persons — even robbing the poor darkies of their 
watches and clothing. Not a single Confederate sol- 
dier did they encounter. They ought to live in history I 
My Vermont friend, Lucy Adams, says these things ' are 
not true, no one at the North believes them, they are 
impossible.' But we know they are true. I was very 
anxious to send you Sherman's speech at Cincinnati — 
perhaps you have seen it — in which he unblushingly 
sanctions all the outrages committed by his men. I 
really think some notice ought to be taken of it, but our 
papers, you see, are all ruined now; and in New York, 
only ' The News ' dares publish anything true. . . . 
I have found a copy, but this says at ' Lancaster, Ohio ' ; 
perhaps he said the same thing twice; it was at the 
close of a grand speech : ' Soldiers, when we marched 
through and conquered the country of the rebels, we 
became owners of all they had; and I don't want you 
to be troubled in your consciences for taking, while on 
our great march, the property of the conquered rebels — 
they had forfeited their right to it.' " 

" For several years since the nineties it has been my 
privilege to serve a large charitable institution here," a 
Southern friend writes me from a Northern city, " On 
the Fourth of July I join with as much fervor as any- 
body in the flag salute, in singing 'America' and all the 
other patriotic songs, until they come to ' Marching 
Through Georgia.' That takes the very heart out of 
me ! Sometimes it is all I can do to keep from bursting 
into tears! Then again I feel as if I must stand up 
and shout: 'We should not teach any American child 
to sing that song ! ' You know the home of one of my 
dearest friends was in the way of that march; it was 
burned to the ground and she, a little girl, and her 
aged grandfather wandered homeless in the night. I 
wonder, O, I wonder, if our soldiers in the Philippines, 



THE WHITE CHILD 307 

Northern and Southern boys, are giving grounds for 
any such songs as that ! I'd rather we'd lose the 
fight!" 

A cause operating against education of both races 
remains to be cited. The carpet-bag, scalawag and 
negroid State Governments made raids on educational 
funds. In North Carolina, $420,000 in railroad stock 
belonging to the Educational Fund for the Benefit of 
Poor Children were sold for $158,000, to be applied 
in part payment of extended per diems of legislators. 
These legislators gave at State expense lavish entertain- 
ments, and kept a bar and house of prostitution in the 
Capitol; took trips to New York and gambled away 
State funds by thousands; war had left a school fund, 
taxation increased it; but for two years no child, white 
or black, received benefits. There was money enough 
for the Governor to raise and equip two regiments, one 
of negroes, for intimidation of whites, but none for 
education. Of Georgia's public school fund of 
$327,000, there seems not to have been a penny left 
to the State when her million-dollar legislature adjourned 
In 1870, 

Louisiana's permanent school fund for parishes van- 
ished with none to tell where it went. Attention was 
called to its disappearance by W. E. Brown, the negro 
State Superintendent of Education, When Warmouth, 
was inaugurated (1868), the treasury held $1,300,500 
for free schools. " Bonds representing this," states 
Hon. B. F. Sage, *' the most sacred property of the 
State, were publicly auctioned June, 1872, to pay war- 
rants issued by Warmouth." Warmouth, like Holden 
of North Carolina, and Scott and Moses of South Caro- 
lina, raised and maintained at State expense a black 
army. In 1870, the Radical Governor of Florida made 
desperate efforts to lay hands on the Agricultural Land 



3o8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Scrip, property of the Agricultural College of that 
State; to save it from his clutches C. T. Chase, President 
of Public Instruction, asked President Grant's inter- 
vention. A forger, embezzler and thief presided over 
Mississippi's Department of Education. In every 
State it was the same story of public moneys wasted by 
nefarious tricksters who had ridden to power on the 
negro ballot; the widow and the orphan robbed, the 
gray-beard and the child ; the black man and the white. 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 



CHAPTER XXVII 

SCHOOLMARMS AND OtHER NeWCOMERS 

Many good people came down to do good to us and the 
negroes; we were not always so nice to these as we ought 
to have been. But very good people can try other very 
good people sorely sometimes. Besides, some who came 
in sheep's clothing were not sheep, and gave false ideas 
of the entire flock. 

Terms of professional philanthropy were strange in 
the Southerner's mouth. It never occurred to the men, 
women and maidens who visited all the poor, sick, old 
and feeble negroes in their reach, breaking their night's 
rest or their hours of recreation or toil without a sense 
of sacrifice — who gave medicines, food, clothing, any 
and everything asked for to the blacks and who minis- 
tered to them in neighbourly ways innumerable — that 
they were doing the work of a district or parish visitor. 
Southerners have been doing these things as a matter of 
course ever since the negroes were brought to them 
direct from Africa or by way of New England, making 
no account of it, never organizing into charitable asso- 
ciations and taking on corresponding tags, raising collec- 
tions and getting pay for official services; the help a 
Southerner gave a darkey he took out of his own pocket 
or larder or off his own back; and that ended the matter 
till next time. 

Yet, here come salaried Northerners with "Educa- 
tor," "Missionary," or "Philanthropist" marked on 
their brows, broidered on their sleeves; and as far as 
credit for work for darkeys goes, "taking the cake" 

311 



312 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

from the Southerner, who had no warm welcome for 
the avalanche of Instructors pouring down upon him 
with the " I am holler than thou " expression, and bent 
as much upon teaching him what he ought to have been 
doing as upon teaching the negro to struggle indecor- 
ously for the semblance of a non-existent equality. 

Newcomers were upon us like the plagues of Egypt. 
Deserters from the Federal Army, men dismissed for 
cause, followers in its wake, political gypsies, bums and 
toughs. Everybody in New York remarked upon the 
thinning out of the Bowery and its growing orderliness 
during enlistments for the Spanish-American War; and 
everybody knew what became of vanishing trampdom; 
it joined the army. The Federal Army in the sixties 
was not without heavy percentage of similar element; 
and, when, after conquest, it returned North, it left 
behind much riff-raff. Riff-raffs became politicians and 
intellectual and spiritual guides to the negroes. From 
these, and from early, unwise, sometimes vicious Freed- 
men's Bureau instructors. Southerners got first ideas of 
Yankee schoolmasters and schoolmarms. 

" Yankee schoolmarms " overran the country. Their 
spirit was often noble and high as far as the black man's 
elevation — or their idea of it — was concerned; but 
towards the white South, it was bitter, judicial, unre- 
lenting. Some were saints seeking martyrdom, and 
finding it; some were fools; some, incendiaries; some, 
all three rolled into one; some were straight-out busi- 
ness women seeking good-paying jobs; some were edu- 
cational sharps. 

Into the Watkins neighbourhood came three teachers, 
a male preacher and two women teachers. They went 
in among the negroes, ate and slept with them, paraded 
the streets arm-in-arm with them. They were disturbed 
to perceive that, even among negroes, the familiarity 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 313 

that breeds contempt Is not conducive to usefulness; and 
that they were at a disadvantage In the eyes of the 
negroes because white people failed to recognise them. 

Mr. Watkins, master of the manor, was a shining 
light to all who knew him. In summer his verandah, 
in winter his dining-room, was crowded Sunday after- 
noons with negroes on his Invitation : " I will be glad 
to have you come to sing and pray with me." He would 
read a chapter from the Bible, lead the opening prayer, 
then call upon some sable saint to lead, himself respond- 
ing with humble "Amens." White and black would 
sing together. When the newcomers found how things 
were, they felt aggrieved that they had not his counte- 
nance. 

He had seen one of them walk up to his ex-hostler 
and lay her hand on his coat-collar, while she talked 
away archly to him. I hardly believe a gentleman of 
New York, Boston or Chicago would conclude that per- 
sons making intimates of his domestic force could desire 
association with his wife and daughters or expect social 
attentions from them; I hardly believe he would urge 
the ladies of his family to call upon these persons. 
Mr. Watkins did not send his women-kind to see the 
newcomers; at last, the newcomers took the initiative 
and came to. see his family. His daughters did not 
appear, but Mrs. Watkins received them politely. 
They went straight to the point, lodging complaint 
against the community. 

"We had no reason to suppose," said she, quietly, 
"that you cared for the cooperation of our white people. 
iYou acted Independently of us; you did not advise with 
us or show desire for affiliation. We would have been 
forcing ourselves upon you. I will be as frank as you 
have been. Had you started this work in a proper 
spirit and manner, my husband for one would have 



314 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

responded to the limit of his power to any call you made 
upon him." 

They dragged in the social equality business and 
found her adamant. When they charged "race preju- 
dice," she said promptly: "Were I to visit relatives in 
Boston, the nice people there would, I doubt not, show 
me pleasant attentions. Were I to put myself on equal 
terms with their domestics, I could hardly expect It. 
The question Is not altogether one of race prejudice, but 
of fitness of things." " But we are missionaries, not 
social visitors." "We do not feel that you benefit 
negroes by teaching them presumption and to despise 
and neglect work and to distrust and hate us." 

A garrulous negress was entertaining one of these 
women with hair-raising accounts of cruelties practiced 
upon her by whites when, as a slave, she cooked for 
them. The schoolmarm asked: "Why didn't you 
black people poison all the whites and get your freedom 
that way? You're the most patient people on earth 
or you would have done so." A "mammy" who over- 
heard administered a stinging rebuke : " Dat would ha' 
been a sin even ef our white folks wuz ez mean ez Sukey 
Ann been tellin'. Mine wuz good tub me. Sukey Ann 
jes been tellin' you dem tales tub see how she kin wuk 
you up." Perhaps the school-teacher had not meant 
to be taken more literally than Sukey Ann deserved 
to be. 

Until freedom, white and black children could hardly 
be kept apart. Boys ran off fishing and rabbit-hunting 
together; girls played dolls in the garret of the great 
house or in a sunny corner of the woodpile. They 
rarely quarrelled. The black's adoration of the white, 
the white's desire to be allowed to play with the black, 
stood In the way of conflict. An early result of the 
social equality doctrine was war between children of 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 315 

the races. Such strife was confined almost wholly to 
white and black schools In towns, where black and white 
children were soon ready to " rock" each other. A spirit 
of dislike and opposition to blacks, which their elders 
could hardly understand, having never experienced it, 
began to take possession of white children. The follow- 
ing story will give some Idea of these dawning manifes- 
tations of race prejudice: 

Negro and white schools were on opposite sides of the 
street In Petersburg, the former a Freedmen's Bureau 
institution, the latter a private school taught by a very 
youthful ex-Confederate, Captain M., who, though he 
looked like a boy himself, had made, after a brilliant 
university course, a shining war record. The negro 
boys, stimulated by the example of their elders who were 
pushing whites off the sidewalks, and excited by ill-timed 
discourses by their imported white pedagogue, " sassed '* 
the white boys, contended with them for territory, or 
aggravated them in some way. A battle ensued, in 
which the white children ran the black off the street and 
into their own schoolhouse, the windows of which were 
damaged by rocks, the only serious mischief resulting 
from exchange of projectiles. 

In short order six Federal soldiers with bayonets 
fixed marched Into the white schoolhouse, where the 
Captain was presiding over his classes, brought by this 
time to a proper sense of penitence and due state of 
order, their preceptor being a military disciplinarian. 
The invading squad came to capture the children. The 
Captain indignantly protested, saying he was responsible 
for his boys; it was sufficient to serve warrant on him, 
he would answer for them; it was best not to make a 
mountain out of a mole-hill and convulse the town with 
a children's quarrel. The sergeant paid him scant cour- 
tesy and arrested the children. The Captain donned 



3i6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

his old Confederate overcoat, than which he had no 
other, and marched down the street with his boys to the 
Provost's office. 

The Provost, a soldier and a gentleman, after exam- 
ining into the case and considering the small culprits, 
all ranged in a terrified row and not knowing but that 
they would be blown next moment into Paradise or the 
other place, asked the Captain if he would guarantee 
that his children would keep the peace. The Captain 
assured him that he could and would if the teacher of 
the coloured boys would keep his charges in bounds, 
adding that he would have the windows repaired at his 
expense. The Provost accepted this pledge, and with 
a withering look at the pedagogic complainant, said 
to the arresting officer: "Sergeant, I am sorry it 
was necessary to send six armed men to arrest these 
little boys." This happened at ten o'clock in the 
morning. Before ten that night the Provost was 
removed by orders from Washington. So promptly 
had complaint been entered against him that he 
was too lenient to whites, so quickly had it taken 
effect 1 Yet his course was far more conservative of 
the public peace than would have been the court- 
martialing of the children of prominent citizens of the 
town, and the stirring-up of white and black parents 
against each other. 

" It's no harm for a hungry coloured man to make 
a raid on a chicken-coop or corn-pile," thus spoke 
Carpet-Bagger Crockett in King William County, Vir- 
ginia, June, 1869, in the Walker-Wells campaign, at a 
meeting opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Collins, North- 
ern missionary. Like sentiment was pronounced in 
almost the same words by a carpet-bag officer of state, 
a loud advocate of negro education, from the steps of 
the State House in Florida. Like sentiment was taught 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 317 

in direct and indirect ways by no small number of pre- 
ceptors in negro schoolhouses. 

A South Carolina schoolmarm, after teaching her 
term out at a fat salary, made of her farewell a " celebra- 
tion " with songs, recitations, etc. ; the scholars passed 
in procession before the platform, she kissed each, and 
to each handed a photograph of herself for $1. She 
carried off a harvest. Various other small ways of levy- 
ing tribute were practiced by the thoughtless or the 
unscrupulous; and negroes pilfered to meet demands. 
Schoolmarms and masters did not always teach for sweet 
charity's sake. With moving stories some drew heavily 
upon the purse of the generous North for contributions 
which were not exactly applied to the negro's relief or 
profit. In order to attract Northern teachers to Freed- 
men's schools in Mississippi salaries were paid out of all 
proportion to their services or to the people's ability to 
pay. "Examinations for teachers' licenses were not 
such as to ascertain the real fitness of applicants or 
conduce to a high standard of scholarship," says 
James Wilford Garner In " Reconstruction in Missis- 
sippi." " They were asked a few oral questions by the 
superintendent In his private office and tde certificate 
granted as a matter of course." 

** While the average pay of the teachers In Northern 
schools is less than $300 a year, salaries here range from 
$720 to $1,920," said Governor Alcorn to the Missis- 
sippi Legislature in 1871. The old log schoolhouses 
were torn down by the reconstructionlsts, new and costly 
frame and brick ones built; and elegant desks and hand- 
some chairs, " better suited to the academy than the 
common school," displaced equipments that had been 
good enough for many a great American's intellectual 
start In life. In Monroe County, schoolhouses which 
citizens offered free of charge were rejected and new 



31 8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ones built; teachers' salaries ranged from $50 to $150 
a month; schools were multiplied; heavy special taxes 
were levied. In Lowndes, a special tax of $95,000 
over and above the regular tax for education was levied. 
Taxpayers protested in formal meetings. The Ku Klux 
whipped several male teachers, one an ex-Confederate, 
and warned a schoolmarm or two to leave. Expenses 
came down. 

What was true of one Southern State was true of 
others where costly educational machinery and a pecula- 
tive system covering "deals" and "jobs" in books, fur- 
niture, schoolhouse construction, etc., were imposed. 
Whippings with which Ku Klux visited a few male 
teachers and school directors here and there, and warn- 
ings to leave served upon others of both sexes, were, in 
most cases, protests — and the only effective protests 
impoverished and tax-ridden communities could make — 
against waste of public funds, peculation, subordination 
of the teacher's office to that of political emissary, Loyal 
League organizer, inculcator of social equality doctrines 
and race hatred. Some whippings were richly deserved 
by those who got them, some were not ; some which were 
richly deserved were never given. It was not always 
Ku Klux that gave the whippings, but their foes, footing 
up sins to their account. It became customary for white 
communities to assemble and condemn violence, begging 
their own people to have no part in it. 

I have known many instances where Southern clergy 
maintained friendly relations with schoolmarms, aiding 
them, operating with them, lending them sympathy, 
thinking their methods often wrong, but accepting their 
earnestness and devotion and sacrifice at its full value. 
I have heard Southerners speak of faculties of certain 
Institutions thus: "Those teachers came down here in 
the spirit that missionaries go to a foreign land, expect- 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 319 

mg persecution and ostracism, and prepared to bear It." 
I have deeply respected the lovely and exalted character 
of some schoolmarms I have personally known, who 
suffered keenly the Isolation and loneliness of their posi- 
tion; to missionaries and teachers of this type, I have 
seen the Southern attitude change as their quality was 
learned. I have seen municipal boards helping with 
appropriations Northern workers among negroes, while 
these workers were ungraciously charging them with race 
prejudice. And I have seen the attitude of such workers 
gradually change towards their white neighbours as they 
understood our white and black people better. 

Early experiments must have sometimes perplexed the 
workers. Negroes had confused Ideas of education. 
Thus, a negress who did not know the English alphabet, 
went to a teacher in Savannah and demanded to be 
taught French right off. Others simply demanded "to 
know how to play de planner." The mass were eager 
for " book-learnin'." Southerners who had been trying 
to instruct indifferent little negroes beheld with curiosity 
this sudden and Intense yearning when " education " was 
held up as a forbidden fruit of the past. 

It has been said that Southern whites would not at 
first teach In the negro schools. "Rebels" were not 
invited and would not have been allowed to teach in 
Bureau schools. Reconstructionlsts preferred naturally 
their own ilk. Certainly all Southerners were not 
opposed per se to negro schools, for we find some so 
influential as the Bishop of Mississippi advising planters 
in 1866 to open schools for their negroes. Leading 
journals and some teachers' conventions in 1867 advo- 
cated public schools for negroes, with Southern whites 
as teachers. It has been said, too, that Northern 
teachers who came to teach the negroes could not secure 
board in respectable white families, and, therefore, had 



320 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

no choice but to board in black. I think this may be 
wholly true. The Southerner firmly believed that the 
education given the negro was not best for him or the 
country; and he was deeply prejudiced against the 
Northern teacher and all his or her ways. The efforts 
of Black and Tan assemblies to force mixed schools upon 
the country was a ground of prejudice against teachers 
and the schools ; so, too, the course of some teachers in 
trying to compel this. 

How could rational people, with the common welfare 
at heart, advocate mixed schools when such feelings were 
in evidence at outset as the captain and the pedagogue 
incident and many similar ones in many States proved 
existent? Such feelings were not and are not limited 
to the South. Only a year or two ago the mixed school 
question caused negroes to burn a schoolhouse near 
Boston. Many white and black educators at the North 
seem to agree that it is not best to mix the races there. 
Prominent negroes are now asserting that it is not best 
for the negro child to put him in schools with whites; 
he is cowed as before a superior or he exhibits or excites 
antipathy. Besides, he casts a reflection upon his own 
race in insisting upon this association. 

If white Southerners at first objected to teaching 
negroes, this objection speedily vanished before the argu- 
ment: "We should teach the negroes ourselves if we 
do not wish them influenced against us by Yankees," 
and, "We should keep the money at home," and the all- 
compelling " I must make a living." As the carpet- 
bag governments went out of power. Northern school- 
teachers lost their jobs and Southern ones got them. As 
negroes were prepared. Southern whites appointed 
negroes to teach negroes, which was what the blacks 
themselves desired and believed just. 

School fights between the races ceased as Southern 



SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS 321 

whites or Southern negroes came in charge of schools 
for blacks, and as Northern people who came South to 
work in charitable enterprises understood conditions 
better. Those who had unwittingly wrought ill in the 
first place had usually meant well. The missionary of 
the sixties and seventies was not as wise as the missionary 
of today, who knows that he must study a people before 
he undertakes to teach and reform them, and that it is 
all in the day's work for him not to run counter heed- 
lessly to established social usages or to try to uproot 
instantly and with violence customs centuries old. A 
reckless reformer may tear up more good things In a 
few weeks than he can replant, or substitute with better, 
in a lifetime. 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

The Carpet-Bagger 

The test-oath was invitation to the carpet-bagger. The 
statements of Generals Schofield and Stoneman show 
how difficult it was to find in the South men capable of 
filling office who could swear they had " never given aid 
or comfort" to a Confederate. Few or no decent 
people could do it. In the summer of 1865, President 
Johnson instructed provisional governors to fill Federal 
offices of mail, revenue and customs service with men 
from other States, if proper resident citizens — that is, 
men who could take the test-oath — could not be found. 
Office-seekers from afar swarmed as bees to a hive. 

The carpet-bagger was the all-important figure in 
Dixie after the war; he was lord of our domain; he 
bred discord between races, kept up war between sec- 
tions, created riots and published the tale of them, laying 
all blame on whites. Neither he nor his running mate 
the scalawag or turn-coat Southerner, was received 
socially. Sentence fell harder upon the latter when old 
friends insulted him and the speaker on the hustings 
could say of him no word too bitter. His family suf- 
fered with him. The wife of the native Radical Gov- 
erner of one Southern State said when her punishment 
was over: "The saddest years of my life were spent 
in the Executive Mansion. In a city where I had been 
beloved, none of my old friends, none of the best people, 
called on me." In times of great poverty, temptations 
were great; men, after once starting in politics, were 
drawn further than they had dreamed possible. Again, 

325 



326 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

men with State welfare at heart, urged compromises as 
the only way to secure benefits to the State; on being 
irritated, urged unwisely; on being ostracized, out- 
Heroded Herod. Our foreign office-holders were not 
all bad men or corrupt. We will not call these carpet- 
baggers. The carpet-bagger has been defined: "A 
Yankee, In a linen duster and with a carpet-bag, appear- 
ing suddenly on a political platform in the South, and 
calling upon the negroes to vote him into office." I give 
portraits of two types. 

In the wake of Sherman's Army which passed 
through Brunswick, Virginia, toward Washington, came 
and stopped two white men, Lewis and McGiffen. 
They were desperadoes and outlaws, carried Winchester 
rifles and were fine shots; said they hailed from Maine; 
to intimates, the leader, Lewis, boasted that he had 
killed his step-father and escaped the hangman by play- 
ing crazy. They leased the farm of a "poor white," 
Mrs. Parrlsh. Lewis opened a negro school and a 
bank, issuing script for sums from twenty-five cents to 
five dollars; he organized a Loyal League, collecting 
the fees and dues therefrom. He armed and drilled 
negroes and marched them around to the alarm of the 
people. Court House records show lawful efforts of 
whites at self-protection. August 8, 1868, Lewis was 
tried before William Lett, J. P., for inciting negroes to 
insurrection, when, under pretense of preaching the 
Gospel to them, he convened them at Parrlsh's. He 
was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years. The 
State was under military rule, and the decision of the 
civil court was set aside and Lewis left at large. John 
Drummond was a witness against Lewis. 

Lewis soon had the negroes well organised ; he estab- 
lished a system of signal stations from the North Caro- 
lina line to Nottoway and Dinwiddle. By the firing of 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 327 

signal guns, they would receive notice to congregate. 
Suddenly, all hands on a man's plantation would stop 
work and say: "Got orders, suh, tuh go tuh de Cote 
House." And all at once roads would be lined with 
negroes from every direction bound for the Court 
House. In a few hours the little town would fill with 
darkeys, a thousand or more on the streets. They 
would collect thus from time to time, and hold secret 
or public political meetings, Lewis, McGiffen and other 
speakers working them up to a state of great excitement. 

At one meeting, a riot occurred in which several men 
were killed or wounded. Mr. Freeman Jones, later 
Sheriff of the County, gave me a version of it. He said : 
"Meade Bernard (afterwards Judge Bernard) and 
Sidney Jones were set upon. Negroes knocked the last- 
named gentleman senseless, continuing chastisement 
until he was rescued by the Freedmen's Bureau officer. 
When Bernard was attacked, his old coloured nurse, 
Aunt Sally Bland, rushed into the melee, crying: ' Save 
my chile ! save my chile ! ' Sticks were raining blows 
on his head when she interfered, pleading with them to 
desist until they stopped. These white men had shown 
all their lives, only kindness to negroes. When set 
upon they were doing nothing to give offense, they were 
simply listening to the speeches. One negro, observing 
their presence, cried out : * Kill the d — d white scoun- 
drels ! ' Others took up the cry. 

" The whites, a little handful, retreated towards the 
village, followed by at least a thousand negroes, yelling 
intention to sack and fire the town. The road passed 
through a very narrow lane into Main Street. Here 
they were blocked and confronted by Mr. L. G. Wall, 
carrier of the United States Mail, who, as a Govern- 
ment official, halted them, telling them he had right of 
way and that they were obstructing Government service ; 



328 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

he ordered them to move back and make room; they 
would not ; he drew his pistol and fired five or six times. 
I believe every shot took effect. Several negroes were 
desperately wounded. The mob retired and Wall went 
on. In the suburbs the negroes held an angry meeting, 
but they had got enough of mob violence." Which was 
fortunate. The normal white male population of the 
village did not exceed forty or fifty. White men went 
to the polls soon after not knowing what to expect, and 
found everything quiet. Negroes had come, voted early 
and gone. They had learned a salutary lesson. 

Lewis claimed to be an ofHcer duly commissioned, and 
went about making arrests, selecting some prominent 
men. One of his victims was William Lett, an old and 
wealthy citizen, and the justice before whom Lewis had 
been brought to trial. A complaint by Mr. Lett's cook 
was the ostensible ground of Lewis' call upon Mr. Lett; 
the real purpose was robbery. The outlaws had 
seduced into their service John Parfish, an unlettered 
boy who liked to hunt with them, and who, boy-like, 
was pleased with their daredevil ways. He composed 
the third in the "team" that went around arresting 
people. He recently gave me the next chapter in the 
Lewis story. 

" I was jes a little boy an' I done what I was ordered 
to. I was goin' out sqir'l huntin', an' I see Dr. Lewis, 
an' he had a paper in his han', an' he say: 'Johnny, 
I want you to go with me this evenin'.' I says: 'I 
wants to go squir'l huntin'.' He says : ' I summons 
you to go wid me to serve a warrant on Mr. Lett.' An' 
I lef my dawgs at my sister's an' I taken my little 
dollar-an'-a-half gun along. He says : ' Johnny, people 
tell me this ole man is mighty hot-headed. If he comes 
out of his house an' I tell you to shoot, shoot.* Dr. 
Lewis called Mr. Lett out to de gate, an' read de war- 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 329 

rant to him. An' Mr. Lett said he wouldn' be arrested 
by him, an' Dr. Lewis grabbed at his coat collar, an' 
Mr. Lett broke loose, an' hollered for somebody to han' 
him his gun outer de house. An' he went into de house 
an' got a gun an' shot Lewis, an' Lewis stepped behin' 
de gate-pos', an' he called to me : ' D — him I where 
is he?' An' I said: 'Jes behin' de winder.' An' I 
stepped behin' de corner, an' Dr. Lewis called me, an' 
I stepped out, an' I thought I see a gun or pistol pointin' 
my way f'om de winder, an' I thought I heard Lewis 
say ' Shoot ! ' an' I shot. It warn't nothin' but a little 
bitter dollar-an'-a-half bird gun. But dem shot went 
through de weather-bo'din'. I heard Mr. Lett's gun 
when it fell an' I heard him when he fell. Lewis was 
standin' behin' de gate-pos'. The cook-woman hol- 
lered : ' Here he is ! here he is, going out at de back 
door I ' And thar was a little chicken-house. An' Lett 
shot Lewis with bird-shot." 

Mr. Freeman Jones summed It up simply thus: 
" When the gang came to capture Mr. Lett, the old man 
attempted a defense, ordering them off his place, and 
barricading himself behind the nearest thing at hand, 
which happened to be a chicken-coop. Lewis shot and 
nearly killed him; the old man lingered some time 
between life and death." Mr. Lett, it seems, was shot 
by both. "They toted Lewis away," concludes Par- 
rish, "to de house of a feller named Carroll, an' he 
stayed thar. They sent for de military soldiers an' they 
came, an' I stated de case well as I could, an' they dis- 
charged me." Lewis was tried in the civil court, sen- 
tenced to a term in the penitentiary, was carried by the 
sheriff to that institution and pardoned next day by 
Governor Wells, military appointee of General Scho- 
field; he got back to the county almost as soon as the 
sheriff. 



330 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

The people became more and more incensed at 
repeated outrages. Dr. Powell, whose assassination 
was attempted, tells me that the immediate cause of the 
final tragedies was that Lewis ordered Carroll to 
leave home. John B. Drummond, volunteering, was 
appointed special constable to arrest Lewis. He met 
Lewis and his gang in a turn of the road and halted 
them, telling Lewis he had a warrant for him. Lewis 
fired, killing him instantly. The temper of the public 
was now such that Lewis and McGiffen fled the State, 
enticing Parrish along. They sought asylum in North 
Carolina and sent Parrish back for some property. A 
reward was offered for them. In a little one-horse 
wagon which Parrish brought with Lewis' pony, they 
travelled by night to Charleston, South Carolina. Here 
Lewis opened a school and Parrish hired himself out. 
They staid there two years. McGiffen married again. 
He had taken his little child from his Brunswick wife; 
now he concluded to carry It back to her. 

" I went with him," says Parrish. " We come near 
a village an' we stopped at a man's house. He mis- 
trusted something wrong." (Naturally! Dr. Powell 
says he saw his guests moulding bullets, ordered them 
out, and they defied him, declaring they would spend 
the night.) "He sent out an' got two men an' they 
come In thar wid thar guns an' staid all night. When 
we got up In de little town nex' mornin', thar come out 
twenty men wid guns in thar ban's, an' de Mayor he 
was thar, an' McGiffen tole 'em to stop; an' they 
stopped. He tole 'em thar couldn' but one or two come 
near. They suspicioned about our having the little chile 
along. You see, thar was trouble 'bout dat time 'bout 
children bein' kidnapped an' carried off to de Dismal 
Swamp. I see ten or thirteen men on de railroad, an' 
they comin' pretty close. McGiffen hollered out for 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 331 

'em to stop, or he would certainly shoot. An' they 
stopped. Then somebody hollered * Close up ! ' 

" I had de little boy in my lap. To keep him f'om 
gittin' hurt, I set him down by de roadside. McGiffen 
an' me had been ridin' one horse, takin' turns, de one 
ridin' carryin' de baby. A feller kep' comin' closer, 
an' I hollered, ' Stop, sir, or I'm goin' to shoot you ! ' 
an' I shot him him in de han'. He kep' hollerin' I had 
killed him, an' de other fellers sorter scattered, an' that 
give McGiffen chance to git away. An' I got away. 
Had to leave de baby settin' thar side de road. An' 
they follered me up an' got me, an' they got McGiffen. 
After they captured us, they heard about thar bein' 
three strangers down whar we had come f'om, an' they 
suspicioned we was de men dat had been advertised for 
because of de trouble in Brunswick. An' they sent after 
Lewis. It was one night. He had unbuckled his 
pistols an' laid 'em on his bureau, an' some visitors come 
to see him ; an' he was talkin' to them, an' eight or ten 
men stepped up behin' him an' that's how they got him. 
An' they had de three of us. An' Governor Walker 
sent Bill Knox, de detective, an' Dr. Powell he was sent 
to identify us. An' we were carried to Richmond, an' 
then we were carried to Greensville, an' we were tried. 
De little boy was sent back to his mother. I was sent 
to de penitentiary for eight years, but I got out sooner 
for good behaviour; an' I learned a good trade thar. 
But I don't think they ought to ha' sent me, because I 
was jes a boy an' I done what I was ordered to do when 
I shot Mr. Lett — that what's they sent me for. An' 
de military soldiers had said I warn't to blame. Lewis 
he played off crazy like he done befo', an' they sent him 
to de asylum, an' he escaped like he done befo'. De 
superintendent was a member of de Loyal League. An' 
McGiffen was hung, an' I never thought he ought to ha' 



332 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

been hung." Military rule was at an end and Virginia 
was back in the Union when the fugitives were cap- 
tured. 

There was another flutter of the public pulse in this 
county when, perhaps, the one thing that saved the day 
was the confidence of the negroes in Sheriff Jones. 
Court was in session when several people ran into the 
court room, shouting: "Sheriff! Sheriff! they are 
killing the negroes out here ! " Sheriff Jones ran out 
and saw a crowd of five or six hundred negroes, some 
drunk, in the street, and in their midst two drunken 
white men. A few other whites were lined up against 
a fence, their hands on their pistols, not knowing what 
a moment would bring forth. People cried out : " Don't 
go Into that crowd. Sheriff ! You're sure to get shot ! " 
" Here, boys ! " called the Sheriff to some negroes he 
knew, "take me into that crowd." Two negroes made 
a platform of their hands, and on this the officer was 
carried into the mob, his bearers shouting as they went : 
" LIs'n to de sheriff ! Hear what de sheriff say! " He 
called on everybody to keep the peace, had no trouble 
in restoring quiet, and arrested everybody he thought 
ought to be arrested. "But our coloured people soon 
became orderly and well-behaved after the carpet- 
baggers left us," says Sheriff Jones. 

In several Southern States at this period, such a 
termination to the last incident would have been almost 
impossible. Here, the officer was a representative 
native white ; he understood the people and all elements 
trusted him; the interest of the community was his own. 
With an outsider in position, the case must have been 
quite different; the situation more difl^cult and the sequel 
probably tragic, even conceding to the officer sincere 
desire to prevent trouble, a disposition carpet-baggers 
did not usually betray. Riots in the South were breath 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 333 

of life to carpet-bag governments. July 25, 1870, 
Governor Smith, Republican, of Alabama, said over his 
signature, of a politician who had criticised him for not 
calling out negro militia to Intimidate whites: "My 
candid opinion is that Sibley does not want the law 
executed, because that would put down crime, and crime 
Is his life's blood. He would like very much to have a 
Ku Klux outrage every week, to assist him In keeping 
up strife between whites and blacks, that he might be 
more certain of the latter's votes. He would like to 
have a few coloured men killed weekly to furnish sem- 
blance of truth to Senator Spencer's libels against the 
State." 

In quiet country places where people did not live 
close enough for mutual sympathy and protection, the 
heavy hand was often most acutely felt. Such neigh- 
bourhoods were shortened, too, of ways to make oppres- 
sion known at headquarters; it cost time and money to 
send committees to Washington, and Influence to secure 
a hearing. When troubles accumulated, some hitherto 
peaceful neighbourhood, hamlet or town would suddenly 
find unenviable fame thrust upon It. There was, for 
Instance, the Colfax Riot, Grant Parish, Louisiana, 
where sixty-three lives were lost. Two tickets had been 
announced elected. Governor Kellogg, after his man- 
ner of encouraging race wars, said, " Heaven bless you, 
my children!" to both, commissioned the two sets of 
officers, and told them to " fight it out," which they did 
with the result given and the destruction of the Court 
House by fire. Negroes had been called In, drilled, 
armed and taught how to make cannon out of gas-pipe. 

And now for the portrait of a carpet-bagger of whom 
all who knew him said: " He Is the most brilliant man 
I ever met." I can only give fictitious names. .Other- 
wise, innocent people might be wounded. 



334 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

A young lieutenant, discharged from the Federal 
Army, located in Roxmere, a college town. His first 
move was to pose as a friend to whites, and to insinuate 
himself into nice families. When there was trouble — > 
which he stirred up — between the races, he would assume 
the authority — none was given him by the Govern- 
ment — to interfere and settle it. For instance, he would 
undertake to punish negroes for impertinence. He 
began to practise law. He married a young lady of the 
section, of means but not a daughter of the aristocracy; 
she had owned many negroes; he made out a list, which 
he kept, expecting the Government to pay for them. 
He said his father was an English clergyman, and he 
spoke beautifully and feelingly of his early life. When 
it became apparent that the negro was to be made a 
voter, Yankee Landon (as Roxmere called him), 
changed tactics; he organized Union Leagues, drilled 
negroes and made incendiary speeches. 

One day. Judge Mortimer, hurrying into the Court 
House, said: "Yankee Landon is on the hustings 
making a damnable speech to the negroes! " Landon's 
voice could be heard and the growls of his audience. 
The whites caught these words ringing clear and dis- 
tinct: "We will depopulate this whole country of 
whites. We have got to do it with fire and sword ! " 
Some one else, much excited, came in, saying, " A move- 
ment's on foot to lynch Landon." The old Judge 
hastened up the street. He met some stern-faced men 
and stopped them. "We know what Landon is say- 
ing," they told him, "and we intend to swing him." 
He tried to turn them from their purpose, but they 
declared: "There is no sense in waiting until that 
scoundrel has incited the negroes to massacre us." 
Another cool-headed jurist sought to stay them. " Do 
you realise what you are going to do ? " he asked. " We 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 335 

are going to hang Yankee Landon." "That will not 
do! " " We've got to do it. The safety of our homes 
demands it." The combined efforts of conservative 
men stayed summary action. Landon got wind of what 
was brewing, and for a time was more prudent of 
tongue ; then, concluding that the people were afraid to 
molest him, broke forth anew. 

In the Union League season, there was a tremendous 
negro crowd on the streets ; whites had hardly room to 
walk; they got very sick of it all. Roxmere's college 
men decided to take a hand and disposed themselves for 
action. " Don't give way one inch to these old slavo- 
crats ! " Landon was shouting from a goods-box, when 
they sent Cobb Preston out. Cobb, in a dressing-gown 
trailing four feet, walked into the crowd. He placed 
a chip on his hat. " Will some one step on my dressing- 
gown or knock this chip off?" he asked loudly and 
suavely. Everybody gave him room to trail around in. 
Nobody stepped near the tail of that dressing-gown ! 
No hand approached within yards of that chip ! Any 
sudden turn he made was a signal for fresh scatterings 
which left wide swath for his processional. Did he 
flirt around quickly, calling on somebody to step on his 
gown or knock off his chip, darkeys fell over each other 
getting out of his way. Landon understood. He 
knew if the college boys succeeded in starting a row 
he would be killed. After that, whites could use side- 
walks without being shoved off. Landon was adept in 
pocketing insults. Men cast fearful epithets in his 
teeth. " I have heard Vance McGregor call him a dog, 
a thief — and he would take it," says a lawyer who prac- 
tised in the same courts with him. 

He and a negro "represented" the county in the 
Black and Tan Convention. He came back a much 
richer man. Nobody visited his family. One day, 



336 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Rev. Dr. Godfrey encountered on the street a little girl, 
who asked: " Have you seen my papa? " " Who is 
your papa, little one ? " " Yan-kee Landon ! " she piped. 
He led her to the corner and tenderly directed her way. 
Rev. Dr. Godfrey did not hesitate to arraign Landon 
from his pulpit. One Sunday, when Landon and his 
wife sat in the front pew, and the conversion of 
Zaccheus happened to be his subject, the congregation 
was electrified to hear him draw comparisons between 
Zaccheus and carpet-baggers, to the great disparage- 
ment of the latter. He spoke of the fine horses, wines 
and cigars of modern Mr. Zaccheus, and of Mrs. Zac- 
cheus' silks and jewels. "Zaccheus of old could say," 
he cried, '"If I have taken anything from any man, 
I restore him fourfold! Not so Zaccheus of today," 
and he looked straight in Landon's face. Landon's 
contribution was equal to that of all the other people 
in the church put together. The Landons gave up 
their pew, and attended worship elsewhere, but pres- 
ently came back to Dr. Godfrey's, the " swell " church. 
He spared them not. But he went to see Landon's wife 
and sent his wife to see her. " Mrs. Landon Is a young 
mother, my dear," he said, " you should go." 

Twice Landon represented the district In the Legis- 
lature, first in the House, then In the Senate. While 
Commonwealth's Attorney, he made a startling record; 
he ran a gambling saloon, a thing it was his sworn duty 
to ferret out and prosecute. Hazard, chuck-a-luck and 
other games of chance were played there. It was a 
new departure In a quiet, religious town; the college 
boys were drawn In. Judge Mortimer's little son 
trotted into it at the heels of a grown-up relative, and 
going home Innocently told his father about " the funny 
little things they play with ; when they win, they take 
the money; when Mr. Landon wins, he takes It." In 



THE CARPET-BAGGER 337 

modern parlance, the old judge "pulled" that saloon 
next evening, bagging thirty of the nicest young fellows 
in the community. They were indicted for gambling 
and Landon for keeping a gambling saloon. Landon 
prosecuted everybody but himself, convicting the last 
one; then resigned, and McGregor conducted the case 
against him. His sentence was $100 fine and four 
months In jail. While In jail he studied law and 
acquired more knowledge of it than In all the years of 
his freedom; he had known little about it, shrewdness 
and sharpness standing him In place of knowledge. A 
hog-drover was put In the cell with him one night and 
he won $150 out of him at poker. The Governor par- 
doned him out at three months. He ran for Common- 
wealth's Attorney and was elected; he made an able 
and efficient officer. He would prosecute unswerv- 
ingly his closest friend. His political ally built the new 
jail, Landon getting him the job. " I wonder who will 
be the first fool to get In here," he said to Landon. 
He was; Landon convicted him. Men who despised 
his principles admired his Intellect. In court-room 
repartee he could take the wind out of McGregor's 
sails, and McGregor was past master In the art. He 
was able, brilliant, unscrupulous, without a moral con- 
science, but with a keen Intellectual one. He was no 
spendthrift In rascality, economised In employment of 
evil means, using them no farther than self-interest 
r-equlred. He could show kindness gracefully; ceased 
to stir up negroes when It ceased to pay. A neighbour 
who was civil when others snubbed him, went to Wash- 
ington when Landon, at his zenith, was there In a high 
Government position, and opened a law office. Landon 
threw work his way. 

One day McGregor, Governor of his State, got a 
letter from Landon ; a great foreign dignitary, visiting 



338 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

this country, was to be entertained at Landon's palace; 
would McGregor lend the old State flag to be draped 
with the Stars and Stripes and the foreigner's flag over 
the end of the room where Landon and the dignitary 
would stand while receiving? McGregor sent it. In 
the little town in which he tricked and won his way, 
court was never paid to Landon on account of his wealth 
and power, but people gradually came to treat him less 
coldly as he changed with the times. Reconstruction 
tried men's souls and morals; a man who went to pieces 
under temptation sometimes came out a gentleman, or 
something like it, when temptation was over. Landon 
won favors of all parties. Cleveland gave him a posi- 
tion. A committee waited upon Mr. McKinley, asking 
appointment for Landon. Mr. McKinley demurred: 
" I understand that in the South, Mr. Landon Is not 
considered a gentleman." "We promised him this if 
he would render the party the service which he has 
rendered." The President had to yield. Roosevelt, 
who came to the Presidency without election, turned this 
man down with a firm hand. 



THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE 



CHAPTER XXIX 

The Devil on the Santee 

( A Rice-Planter's Story) 

Between the plantation where harmony and industry 
still prevailed and that in which was complete upheaval 
of the old order, were thousands showing its disintegra- 
tion in intermediate grades. On the James River, in 
Virginia, and on waterways in rice and cotton lands 
up which Federal gunboats steamed, and on the Sea 
Islands, plantations innumerable furnished parallel 
cases to that set forth in the following narrative, which 
I had from Captain Thomas Pinckney, of Charleston, 
South Carolina, When Captain Pinckney went down 
to El Dorado, his plantation on the Santee, in 1866, 
he found things "In a shocking condition and the very 
devil to pay." The night before reaching his place he 
spent at the house of an English neighbour, who had 
had oversight of his property. He received this report : 
" Your negroes sacked your house, stripped it of furni- 
ture, bric-a-brac, heirlooms, and divided these among 
themselves. They got it into their heads that the prop- 
erty of whites belongs to them ; and went about taking 
possession with utmost determination and insolence. 
Nearly all houses here have been served the same way. 
I sent for a United States officer and he made them 
restore furniture — the larger pieces, which are much 
damaged. Small things — mementoes which you value 
as much or more — are gone for good. There was but 
one thing they did not remove — the mirror in the 

341 



342 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

wall." * "The negroes have been dancing shIn-dIgs in 
your house," the Englishman went on. "They have 
apportioned your land out among themselves." 

Yet the Captain was not fully prepared for the deso- 
lation that met his eyes when he went home next day. 
Ever before, he had been met with glad greetings. 
Now, instead of a merry crowd of darkeys rushing out 
with shouts of "Howdy do, Marster!" "Howdy do, 
Boss!", silence reigned and no soul bade him welcome 
as he made his way to his own door. Within the house 
one faithful servant raised her voice in lonely and 
pathetic notes of joy. "Where are the others?" he 
asked. "Where are the men?" " Don' know, Mars- 
ter." "Tell any you can find to come here." She 
returned from search to say none could be found. 
Dinner-hour passed. The men kept themselves invisi- 
ble. He said to her : " I will be back tomorrow. Tell 
the men I must see every one of them then." He 
returned armed. It was his known custom as a hunts- 
man to carry a gun; hence he could carry one now 
without betraying distrust. " Indeed, I felt no fear 
or distrust," he says; "these were my own servants, 
between whom and myself the kindest feelings had 
always existed. They had been carefully and conscien- 
tiously trained by my parents; I had grown up with 
some of them. They had been glad to see me from 
the time that, as a little boy, I accompanied my mother 
when she made Saturday afternoon rounds of the quar- 
ters, carrying a bowl of sugar, and followed by her little 



* This mirror had been built into the wall when the house was 
erected by the Captain's grandfather, General Thomas Pinckney, of 
the Revolution, soon after his return from the Court of St. James, 
where he served as United States Minister by Washington's appoint- 
ment. It was Charles Cotesworth, brother of this Thomas, who 
threw down the gage to France in the famous words : " The United 
States has millions for defense but not one cent for tribute ! ' " 



THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE 343 

handmaidens bearing other things coloured people liked. 
At every cabin that she found swept and cleaned, she 
left a present as an encouragement to tidiness. I could 
not realise a need of going protected among my own 
people, whom I could only remember as respectful, 
happy and affectionate." 

He bade the woman summon the men, and he waited 
under the trees. They came, sullen, reluctant, evincing 
no trace of old-time cordiality; addressed him as " you " 
or "Cap'n"; were defiant; brought their guns. 
" Men," he said, " I know you are free. I do not wish 
to interfere with your freedom. But I want my old 
hands to work my lands for me. I will pay you wages." 
They were silent. " I want you to put my place in 
order, and make it as fruitful as it used to be, when it 
supported us all in peace and plenty. I recognise your 
right to go elsewhere and work for some one else, but 
I want you to work for me and I will on my part 
do all I can for you." 

They made answer short and quick : " O yes, we gwi 
wuk! we gwi wuk all right. De Union Ginruls dee 
done tell us tub come back f'om follin arter de army 
an' dig greenbacks outer de sod. We gwi wuk. We 
gwi wuk fuh ourseVes. We ain' gwi wuk fuh no white 
man." "Where will you go?" "We ain' gwine 
nowhar. We gwi wuk right here on de Ian' whar we 
wuz bo'n an' whar belongs tub us." Some had not 
been born on the land, but had been purchased during 
the war by Captain Pinckney, In the kindness of his 
heart, to prevent family division in the settlement of an 
estate. One of this lot, returning from a Yankee gun- 
boat, swaggered to conference under the trees, in a fine 
uniform, carrying a handsome rifle, and declared he 
would work or not as he pleased, come and go as he 
pleased and consider the land his own. He went to 



344 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

his cabin, stood in the door, looked the Captain In the 
eye, brought his gun down with a crash, and said: 
" Yes, I gwi wuk right here. I'd like tuh see any man 
put me outer dis house I " 

Captain Pinckney, after waiting for the men to think 
over the situation, assembled them again. Their atti- 
tude was more insolent and aggressive. He gave them 
ten days longer for decision; then all who would not 
work must go. His neighbours were having similar 
experiences. In a section where a few years before 
perfect confidence had existed between white and black, 
all white men went armed, weapons exposed to view. 
They were few, the blacks many. After consultation, 
they reported conditions to General Devens at Charles- 
ton, and suggested that he send down a representative. 
He sent a company under an officer whom the planters 
carried from plantation to plantation. Negroes were 
called and addressed: " I have come to tell you people 
that these lands belong to these planters. The Govern- 
ment has not given these lands to you; they do not 
belong to the Government to give. You are free to 
hire out to whom you will, or to rent lands. But you 
must work. You can't live without work. I advise 
you to make contracts quickly. If crops are not made, 
you and your families will suffer." 

This Federal visitation was not without wholesome 
effect. Yet the negroes would not work till starvation 
drove them to it. The Captain's head-plower came 
confessing: " Cap'n, I 'clar' 'fo' Gawd, suh, I ain' got 
no vlttles fuh my wife an' chlllun. I ain' got a day's 
rations in my cabin." " It's your own fault. You can 
go to work any minute you want to." " Cap'n, I'se 
wlUin'. I been wlllin' fuh right smart while. I ain' 
nuvver seed dis way we been doin' wuz zackly right. 
I been 'fused in my min'. But de other niggers dee 



THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE 345 

won' let me wuk. Dee don' want me tuh wuk fuh you, 
suh. I'se feared." The Captain was sorely tempted 
to give rations without conditions, but realised that he 
must stand his ground. In a day or two the head- 
plower reappeared. " Cap'n, I come tuh ax you tuh 
lemme wuk fuh you, suh." "All right. There's your 
plow and mule ready. You can draw rations ahead." 
One by one all came back. They had suffered, and 
their ex-master had suffered with them. 

Many planters had severer trials than the Captain 
and his Immediate neighbours. Down on the coast, 
negroes demanded possession of plantations, barricaded 
them and shot at owners. They pulled up bridges so 
owners could not reach their homes, and in this and 
other ways kept the whites out of property. Many 
planters never recovered their lands. When the time 
came that they might otherwise have done so, they 
were unable to pay accumulated taxes, and their home- 
steads passed forever out of their keeping. 

In making contracts. Captain Pinckney's negroes did 
not want money. "We don' trus' dat money. Maybe 
It git lak Confeddick money," In rice they saw a stable 
value. Besides a share in the general crop, the Captain 
gave each hand a little plot on which to grow rice for 
family consumption. When the general crop was 
divided Into shares, they would say, after retaining a 
" sample " : " Keep my part, suh, an' sell it wid yo's." 
They knew he could do better for them than they could 
for themselves. In business and in the humanities, they 
looked to him as their truest friend. If any got sick, 
got out of food and clothes, got into a difficulty or 
trouble of any sort, they came or sent for him ; sought 
his advice about family matters wherein they would 
trust no other man's counsel ; trusted him in everything 
except politics, in regard to which they would rely upon 



346 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the word of the most unprincipled stranger did he but 
appear under the title "Republican," "Radical," 
" Union Leaguer." 

Carpet-baggers told them: "If the whites get into 
power, -they will put you back in slavery, and will 
not let your wives wear hoop-skirts. If we win the 
election we will give you forty acres and a mule." " I 
know for a fact," Captain Pinckney assured me, "that 
at Adam's Run negroes came to the polls bringing 
halters for mules which they expected to carry home." 

The excitement of the election of 1876, when native 
whites strained every nerve to win the negro vote, was 
fully felt on the Santee. The morning news reached 
El Dorado of Hampton's election, the Captain, accord- 
ing to custom, walked down to his wharf to give orders 
for the day. He found his wharf foreman sitting on 
an upturned canoe, his head hung down, the picture of 
dejection. " William," the Captain said, " I have good 
news." "Whut is it, suh?" "General Hampton is 
elected." Silence. Presently the negro half lifted his 
face, and looking Into the eyes of the white man with 
the saddest, most hopeless expression in his own, asked 
slowly: "Well — Cap'n — whut you goin' tuh do wid 
we, now?'* The master's heart ached for him! 
Remanded back to slavery — that was what negroes were 
taught to look for — to slavery not such as they had 
known, but In which all the follies and crimes to which 
they had been incited since freedom should be charged 
up to them. They did not, could not, realise how 
their old owners pitied, condoned, forgave. 

Next election the struggle was renewed. After a 
hopeful barbecue, the Captain's hands were threshing 
his rice crop. He called the foreman behind the stacks, 
and asked: "Well, Monday, what are you people 
going to do at the polls tomorrow?" " Dee gwl vote 




From a painting photographed by Reckling S: Sons, Columbia, S. C. 

MRS. WADE HAMPTON 

(Daughter of Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina.) 



THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE 347] 

de 'Publican ticket, suh. Ef dee tells you anything else, 
dee's lyin'. I gwi vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. I got 
it tub do. I b'lieve all what you white gent'muns been 
tellin' us at de barbecues. I knows myse'f dat dis way 
we niggers is a-doin' an' a-votin' ain' de bes' way fuh de 
country — anybody kin see dat. But den I got tub vote 
de 'Publican ticket, suh. We all has. Las' 'lection I 
voted de Democrack ticket an' dee killed my cow. 
Abum, he vote de Democrack ticket; dee killed his 
colt." Monday counted off the negroes who had voted 
the "Democrack" ticket, and every one had been pun- 
ished. One had been bombarded in his cabin ; another's 
rice crop had been taken — even the ground swept up 
and every grain carried off, leaving him utterly desti- 
tute. " I tell you, suh," said Monday, " I got tub do it 
on my 'count, an' on yo' 'count. You make me fo'man 
an' ef I didn' vote de 'Publican ticket, I couldn' make 
dese niggers wuk. I couldn' do nothin' 'tall wid 'em." 

The night before an election the Democratic Club 
was in session at McClellanville when Mr. McClellan 
came in and said there would be trouble next day. He 
had heard on the river that negroes were buying up 
ammunition and were coming armed to the polls. He 
had gone to stores and given orders that sale should be 
stopped. Whites now tried to buy but found stock sold 
out. They collected available arms and ammunition in 
village and neighbourhood, and concealed these under 
a hay-wagon, which appeared next day near the polls, 
one of many of similar appearance. Squads were 
detailed for duty near polls and wagon. 

Blacks came armed, and, demurring, stacked muskets 
at the cross-roads which marked the hundred-yard limit 
prescribed by election ruling; all day they were In 
terrible humour. " I heard my own servants," Captain 
Pinckney tells, "between whom and myself the kind- 



348 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

liest feelings had existed, say in threatening tones: 
' We's here tuh stan' up fuh our rights. We ain' gwi 
leave dese polls. None our colour got tuh leave dese 
polls 'fo' dee close.' " 

Whites preserved a front of unconcern they were far 
from feeling. Seventy-five whites and 500 blacks voted 
at this precinct. Guns once in the hands of the blacks, 
and turned against this little handful of whites, God 
help all concerned ! Whites had begun to hope the day 
would end smoothly, when a trifling incident seemed to 
precipitate conflict. Two drunken white men rode 
hallooing along the road. The negroes, taking this as 
a pretext for a fight, rushed for their muskets. An old 
trial justice, Mr. Leland, sprang on a box and called 
loudly: "Come here! Come here!" They looked 
back. "I am the Peace Ofiicer! " he yelled. " Come, 
listen to me! " Threatening, curious, sullen, they came 
back some paces with an air of defiance, of determina- 
tion suspended for the moment. " I don't like the looks 
of things," said the old trial justice, "and I am going 
to call on the most influential men in the community to 
act as my constabulary force and help me maintain 
order. Pinckney!" The gunboat desperado stepped 
forward. " Calhoun ! De Saussure ! Huger I Horry I 
Porcher ! Gaillard ! " So the wily old justice went on, 
calling names famous in the annals of South Carolina, 
and black men answered. " Line up there I Take the 
Oath of Office ! Hold up your hands and swear that, 
so help you God, you will help me maintain the laws 
and preserve the peace and dignity of the State of 
South Carolina ! " He happened to have in his pocket 
a dozen old badges of office, and swift as he swore the 
men in, he pinned badges on them. He made them a 
flighty, heroic little speech and the face of events was 
changed. 



THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE 349 

He had picked off ring-leaders in mischief for justices 
of the peace. Whites found it difficult to pocket smiles 
while beholding them strutting around, proud as pea- 
cocks, and reducing to meekness inoffensive negroes who 
would never have made any disturbance in the first place 
but for the prodding of these same new "limbs of the 
law." It was trying in a different way to see a peace- 
able, worthy negro knocked about incontinently by 
bullies "showing off." Yet the matter in hand was to 
get the day over without bloodshed. And this end was 
achieved. 

Avoidance of bloodshed was not attained at all public 
meetings, as students of reconstruction history know too 
well. "And all sorts of lies went North about us," 
says the Captain, " the Radicals and their paid allies 
sending them ; and sometimes, good people writing about 
things they did not understand or knew by hearsay only. 
I stopped reading Northern papers for a long time — 
they made me mad. The 'Tribune's' false accounts 
of the Ellenton Riot exasperated me beyond endurance. 
It got its story from a Yankee schoolmarm who got it 
from a negro woman. I was so aggravated that I sat 
down and wrote Whitelaw Reid my mind. I told him 
I had subscribed to the ' Tribune ' for years, but now it 
was so partisan it could not tell the truth; its reports 
were not to be trusted and I could not stand it any 
longer; and he would oblige me by never sending me 
another copy; he could give the balance of my sub- 
scription to some charity. I directed his attention to the 
account of the Ellenton Riot in the ' New York Herald ' 
and reminded him that the truth was as accessible to one 
paper as the other. Reid did not answer my letter 
except through an editorial dealing with mine and 
similar epistles." He said In part, to the best of the 
Captain's memory: 



350 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

*' We have received indignant letters from the South 
in regard to recent articles in this paper. A prominent 
South Carolinian writes : ' I can't stand the " Tribune " 
any longer ! ' One party from Texas says : ' Stop that 
d — d paper ! ' Now, all this for reasons which can be 
explained in a few words. When the ' Tribune ' is 
exposing Republican rascalities, the Southerners read 
it with pleasure. But when it exposes Democratic ras- 
calities, they write : ' Stop that d — d paper ! ' " 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE HOUSE 



CHAPTER XXX 

Battle for the State-House 

South Carolina's first Governor under her second 
reconstruction was General R. K. Scott, of Ohio, ex- 
Freedmen's Bureau Chief. His successor was Franklin 
J. Moses, Jr., scalawag, licentiate and debauche, four 
years Speaker of the House, the " Robber Governor." 
Moses' successor was D. H. Chamberlain, a cultivated 
New Englander, who began his public career as 
Governor Scott's Attorney General. A feature of the 
Scott-Moses administration was a black army 96,000 
strong, enrollment and equipment alone costing over a 
half-million dollars, $10,000 of which, on Moses' 
admission, went Into his own pocket as commission on 
purchases. The State's few white companies were 
ordered to surrender arms and disband. 

The State House was refurnished on this scale: $5 
clocks were replaced by $600 ones; $4 looking-glasses 
by $600 mirrors; $2 window curtains by $600 to $1,500 
ones; $4 benches by $200 sofas; $1 chairs by $60 
chairs; $4 tables by $80 tables; $10 desks, $175 desks; 
forty-cent spittoons, $14 cuspidors, etc. Chandeliers 
cost $1,500 to $2,500 each. Each legislator was pro- 
vided with Webster's Unabridged, a $25 calendar Ink- 
stand, $10 gold pen ; railroad passes and free use of the 
Western Union Telegraph were perquisites. As " Com- 
mittee Rooms," forty bed-rooms were furnished each 
session; legislators going home, carried the furniture. 
At restaurant and bar, open day and night In the State 
House, legislators refreshed themselves and friends at 

353 



354 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

State expense with delicacies, wines, liquors, cigars, 
stuffing pockets with the last. Orders for outside enter- 
tainments, given through bar and restaurant, were paid 
by the State. An incident of Radical rule: "Hell 
Hole Swamp," purchased by the Benevolent Land 
Commission as site for homes for homeless negroes. 
Another: Moses lost $i,ooo on a horse race; next 
day the House of Representatives voted him $i,ooo as 
"gratuity." The order on the Treasurer, signed by 
Moses as Speaker, to pay this " gratuity " to Moses Is 
on file in Columbia. 

Bills made by officials and legislators and paid by the 
State, reveal a queer medley! Costly liquors, wines, 
cigars, baskets of champagne, hams, oysters, rice, flour, 
lard, coffee, tea, sugar, suspenders, linen-bosom shirts, 
cravats, collars, gloves (masculine and feminine, by the 
box), perfumes, bustles, corsets, palpltators, embroid- 
ered flannel, ginghams, silks, velvets, stockings, chignons, 
chemises, gowns, garters, fans, gold watches and chains, 
diamond finger-rings and ear-rings, Russia-leather work- 
boxes, hats, bonnets ; in short, every article that can be 
worn by man, woman or Infant; every article of furni- 
ture and house furnishing from a full parlour-set to a 
baby's swinging cradle; not omitting a $ioo metallic 
coffin. 

Penitentiary bills display In abundant quantities fine 
liquors, wines, delicacies and plain provisions; yet con- 
victs nearly starved; bills for the coloured Orphan 
Asylum, under coloured General Senator Beverly Nash's 
direction, show silks, satins, corsets, kid gloves, all 
manners of delicacies and substantials for the table, 
yet It came out that orphans got at " breakfast, hominy, 
mackerel and bean coffee — no milk. At dinner, a little 
bacon or beef, cornbread and hominy, sometimes a little 
baker's bread; at supper, a slice of baker's bread and 




RADICAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE 
OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

These are the photographs of sixty-three members of the " reconstructetl " Legislature of 
South Carolina. Fifty of them were Negroes or Mulattos ; thirteen were white men. Of the 
twenty-two among them who could read and write only eight used the vernacular grammatically. 
Forty-one made their mark with the help of an amanuensis. Nineteen were taxpayers to an 
aggregate of $146.10. The other forty-four paid no taxes, and yet this body was empowered to 
levy on the white people of the state taxes amounting to $4,000,000. 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 355 

black molasses, each child dipping a slice into a saucer 
passed around." The State-paid gardener worked 
Senator Nash's garden ; coal and wood bought " for the 
Asylum " was delivered at Senator Nash's; ditto lumber 
and other supplies. The matron sold dry goods and 
groceries. I have mentioned trifles. For big " steals " 
and "hauls," Railroads, Bond and Printing Ring swin- 
dles, consult the Fraud Reports. ^ 

The State University was negroised, adult white and 
black men matriculating for the express purpose; its 
scholastic standard was reduced below that of an 
academy. Attempt to negroise the Deaf and Dumb 
Asylum closed it. At the Insane Asylum the tact and 
humanity of Dr. J. F. Ensor, Superintendent, made the 
situation possible to whites.* 

South Carolinians beheld Franklin J. Moses, Jr., 
owner of the beautiful and historic Hampton-Preston 
home; at receptions and fetes the carriages of a ring- 
streaked, striped and speckled host rolled up gaily to 
ancient gateways hitherto bars exclusive to all that was 
not aristocratic and refined. One-time serving-maids 
sat around little tables under the venerable trees and 
luxuriant vines and sipped wine In state. A Columbian 
tells me she used to receive a condescending bow from 
her whilom maid driving by In a fine landau. Another 
maid, driving in state past her ex-mlstress's door, turned 
her head In shame and confusion. One maid visited her 
ex-mistress regularly, leaving her carriage a square or 
two off; was her old, respectful, affectionate self, and 
said these hours were her happiest. " Pse jes myse'f 
den." A citizen, wishing to aid his butler, secured 
letters of Influence for him and sent him among rulers of 
the land. George returned : " Marster, I have asso- 



*'See " Reconstruction in South Carolina," by John S. Reynolds, 
in the Columbia " State." 



356 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ciated with gentlemen all my life. I can't keep comp'ny 
with these folks. I'd rather stay with you, I don' care 
how poor we are." 

One night when Rev. William Martin's family were 
asleep, there came a knocking at the door. Miss 
Isabella Martin answered. Maum Letty stood outside 
weeping: "Miss Isabella, Robert's (her son) been 
killed. He went to a party at General Nash's an' dee 
all got to fightin'. I come to ax you to let me bring 
'im here." Permission was given. A stream of 
negroes flowed in and out of the basement rooms where 
the dead was laid. And it was, "The General says 
this," " The General says that." Presently the General 
came. " Good morning, Beverly," said Miss Martin. 
"Good morning, Miss Isabella;" he had been a butler 
and had nice manners. "This is a sad business, Bev- 
erly." "Yes, Miss Isabella. It happened at my 
house, but I am not responsible. There was a party 
there; all got to fighting — you know how coloured 
people will do — and this happened." It is law for the 
coroner to see a corpse, where death has occurred from 
violence, before any removal or change is made. The 
coroner did not see Robert until noon. General Nash 
had gotten the body out of his house quickly as possible. 

Belles of Columbia were Misses Rollins, mulattoes 
or quadroons. Their drawing-room was called " Repub- 
lican Headquarters." Thick carpets covered floors; 
handsome cabinets held costly bric-a-brac; a $i,ooo 
piano stood in a corner; legislative documents bound 
in morocco reposed with big albums on expensive tables. 
Jewelers' and other shops poured treasures at Misses 
Rollins' feet. In their salon, mingling white and dusky 
statesmen wove the destinies of the old Commonwealth. 
Coloured courtezans swept Into furniture emporiums, 
silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders for 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 357 

" committee rooms " ; rode in fine carriages through the 
streets, stopped in front of this or that store; bare- 
headed white salesmen ran out to show goods or jewels. 
Judge M. (who went over to the Radicals for the 
loaves and fishes and ever afterward despised himself) 
was In Washington with a Black and Tan Committee, 
got drunk, and for a joke took a yellow demi-mondaine, 
a State ofEcIal's wife, on his arm and carried her up to 
President and Mrs. Grant and introduced her at a 
Presidential reception. 

Black Speaker Elliott said (" Cincinnati Commercial," 
Sept. 6, 1876) : " If Chamberlain is nominated, I shall 
vote for Hampton." A member of the Chamberlain 
Legislature tells me this is how the Chamberlain-Elliot 
split began. Mrs. Chamberlain was a beautiful woman, 
a perfect type of high-born, high-bred, Anglo-Saxon 
loveliness, noble in bearing, lily-like in fairness. She 
brought a Northern Governor, his wife, and other 
guests to the State House. They were standing near my 
informant in the "white part" of the House, when 
Elliott, black, thick-lipped, sprang down from the 
Speaker's chair, came forward and asked a gentleman 
in attendance for introduction. This gentleman spoke 
to Alice Chamberlain. The lily-white lady lifted her 
eyes toward Elliott, shivered slightly, and said: " No! " 
Elliott did not forgive that. 

If the incident were not on good authority, I should 
doubt it. At Chamberlain's receptions, the black and 
tan tide poured in and out of his doors; he entertained 
black legislators, and presumably Elliott, at dinners and 
suppers. But all men knew Chamberlain's role was 
repugnant to him and his exquisite wife. What she 
suffered during the hours of his political successes, who 
can tell ? Tradition says she was cut to the quick when 
a black minister was called in by her husband to per- 



358 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

form the last rites of the church over her child. Any 
white clergyman of the city would have responded on 
call. There were many to say Chamberlain turned to 
political account even so sacred a thing. Others to say 
that if white ministers had shown him scant attention 
he was right not to call upon them. And yet I cannot 
blame the white clergy for having stood aloof, courting 
no favours, of the foreigner who fraternised with and 
was one of the leaders of the State's spoilers, whether 
he was a spoiler himself or no. 

Governor Chamberlain was fitted for a better part 
than he had to play; he won sympathy and admiration 
of many good citizens. He was a gentleman; he 
desired to ally himself with gentlemen ; and the connec- 
tions into which ambition and the times forced him was 
one of the social tragedies of the period. He began his 
administration denouncing corruption within his own 
party and promising reforms. At first, he investigated 
and quieted race troubles, disbanding negro militia, and 
putting a stop to the drilling of negroes. He bestowed 
caustic criticisms on "negrophilists," which Elliott 
brought against him later. He was at war with his 
legislature; when that body elected W. J. Whipper, an 
ignorant negro gambler, and ex-Governor Moses to 
high judicial positions, he refused to commission them. 

Of that election he wrote General Grant: " It sends 
a thrill of horror through the State. It compels men 
of all parties who respect decency, virtue, or civilisation, 
to utter their loudest protests." He prophesied imme- 
diate "reorganization of the Democratic Party as the 
only means left, in the judgment of its members, for 
opposing solid and reliable front to this terrible crevasse 
of misgovernment and public debauchery." There was 
then no Democratic party within the State ; Democrats 
had been combining with better-class Republicans in 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 359 

compromise tickets. To an invitation from the New 
England Society of Charleston, to address them on 
"Forefathers' Day," he said: "If there was ever an 
hour when the spirit of the Puritans, the spirit of undy- 
ing, unconquerable enmity and defiance to wrong ought 
to animate their sons, it is this hour, here, in South 
Carolina. The civilisation of the Puritan and the Cava- 
lier, the Roundhead and the Huguenot, is in peril." 

A new campaign was at hand. Chamberlain's name 
was heard as leader of a new compromise ticket. He 
had performed services that seemed inspired by genuine 
regard for the old State and pride in her history. He 
was instrumental in having the Washington Light 
Infantry, of Charleston, at Bunker Hill Centennial, and 
bringing the Old Guard, of New York, and the Boston 
Light Infantry to Fort Moultrie's Centennial, when he 
presented a flag to the Washington Light Infantry and 
made a speech that pleased Carolinians mightily. He 
and Hampton spoke from the same platform and sat at 
the same banquet. He was alive to South Carolina's 
interest at the Centennial in Philadelphia. The State 
began to honour him in invitations to make addresses 
at college commencements and on other public occasions. 

A Democratic Convention in May came near nominat- 
ing him. Another met in August. Between these he 
shook confidence in his sincerity. Yet men from the low 
country said: "Let's nominate him. He has tried 
to give honest government." Men from the up coun- 
try: "He can not rule his party, his party may rule 
him." Men from the low country: " We cannot elect 
a straight ticket." Men from the up country: "We 
have voted compromise tickets the last time. We are 
not going to the polls unless we have a straight, clean 
white ticket." They sent for Hampton and nomi- 
nated him. His campaign reads like a tale of the old 



36o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Crusades. To his side came his men of war, General 
Butler, General Gary and Colonel Haskell. At his 
name the people lifted up their hearts in hope. 

Governor Chamberlain had denounced the rascalities 
of Elliott, Whipper's election in the list. He was nomi- 
nated by the Blacks and Tans, on a ticket with R. H. 
Cleaves, mulatto; F. L. Cardoza, mulatto; Attorney 
General R. B. Elliott, black, etc. He walked into the 
convention arm in arm with Elliott. Soon he was 
calling for Federal troops to control elections, charging 
all racial disorders to whites; ruling harsh judgments 
against Red Shirts and Rifle Clubs; classing the Wash- 
ington Light Infantry among disorderly bodies, though 
he had been worthily proud of this company when it 
held the place of honour in the Bunker Hill parade and, 
cheered to the echo, marched through Boston, carrying 
the battle-flag of Colonel William Washington of the 
Revolution. 

That was a picturesque campaign, when every county 
had its "Hampton Day," and the Red Shirts rode, and 
ladies and children raised arches of bloom and scattered 
flowers in front of the old cavalry captain's curvetting 
steed. Barbecues were spread for coloured brethren, 
and engaging speakers tried to amuse, instruct and 
interest them. 

The Red Shirts, like the Ku Klux, sprang into exist- 
ence almost as by accident. General Hampton was to 
speak at Anderson. The Saturday before Colonel 
R. W. Simpson proposed to the Pendleton Club the 
adoption of a badge, suggesting a red shirt as cheap and 
conspicuous. Pickens men caught up the idea. Red 
store supplies ran out and another club donned white 
ones. The three clubs numbered a body of three hun- 
dred or more stalwart, fine-looking men of the hill- 
country, who had nearly all seen service on battlefields. 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 361 

and who rode like centaurs. Preceded by the Pendleton 
Brass Band, they macie an imposing procession at the 
Fair Grounds on the day of the speaking, and were 
greeted with ringing cheers. The band-wagon was 
red; red flags floated from it and from the heads of 
four horses in red trappings; the musicians wore red 
garments; instruments were wrapped in red. The 
effect was electrical. In marching and countermarching 
military tactics were employed with the effect of magni- 
fying numbers to the eyes of the negroes, who had had 
no idea that so many white men were alive. 

The red shirt uniform idea spread; a great red- 
shirted army sprang into existence and was on hand at 
public meetings to see that speakers of the White Man's 
Party had equal hearing with the Black Republicans. 
The Red Shirts rode openly by day and by night, and 
where they wound their scarlet ways women and children 
felt new sense of security. Many under its protection 
were negroes. Hampton strove hard to win the negro 
vote. He had been one of the first after the war to 
urge qualified suffrage for them. In public speeches he 
declared that, if elected, he would be "the governor of 
all the people of South Carolina, white and black." He 
got a large black vote. Years after, when he lay dying, 
friends bending to catch his last words, heard him mur- 
mur: " God bless my people, white and black! " 

Mrs. Henry Martin t^ls me of some fearful days 
following the pleasant ones when her father. Professor 
Holmes, entertained the Old Guard in his garden among 
the roses and oleanders. " One night, my brother, 
after seeing a young lady home from a party, was 
returning along King Street with Mr. Evaugh, when 
they encountered a crowd of negro rowdies and ran 
Into a store and under a counter. The negroes threw 
cobble-stones — the street was in process of paving — on 



362 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

them. My brother was brought home in a wagon. 
When our mother removed his shirt, the skin came 
wholly from his back with it; he lived several years, 
but never fully recovered from his injuries. My father 
cautioned us to stoop and crawl in passing the window 
on the stairway to his room. In other houses, people 
were stooping and crawling as they passed windows; a 
shadow on a curtain was a target for a rock or a bullet. 
Black women were in arms, carrying axes or hatchets 
in their hands hanging down at their sides, their aprons 
or dresses half-concealing the weapons." "There are 
80,000 black men in the State who can use Winchesters 
and 200,000 black women who can light a torch and 
use a knife," said " Daddy Cain," ex-Congressman and 
candidate for reelection, in his paper, "The Missionary 
Record," July, 1876, and in addressing a large negro 
gathering, when Rev. Mr. Adams said, "Amen! " 

Northern papers were full of the Hamburg and 
Ellenton riots, some blaming whites, some blacks, some 
distributing blame impartially. Facts at Cainhoy 
blazed out the truth about that place, at least. The 
whites, unarmed except for pistols which everybody 
carried then, were holding peaceable meeting when fired 
into from ambush by negroes with muskets, who chased 
them, continuing to fire. A youth of eighteen fell, with 
thirty-three buckshot in him; another, dying, wrote his 
mother that he had been giving no trouble. A car- 
penter and a shoemaker from Massachusetts, and an 
aged crippled gentleman were victims. 

"Kill them! Kill them all! Dis town is ours!'* 
Old Charlestonians recall hearing a hoarse cry like this 
from negro throats (Sept. 6, 1876), recall seeing Mr. 
Milton Buckner killed while trying to protect negroes 
from negroes. They recall another night of unforget- 
table horror, when stillness was almost as awful as 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 363 

tumult; frightened blacks were In-doors, but how long 
would they remain so? Rifle Clubs were protecting a 
meeting of black Democrats. Not a footfall was heard 
on the streets; not a sound broke the stillness save the 
chiming of St. Michael's bells. Women and children 
and old men listened for the alarm that might ring out 
any moment that the negroes had risen en masse for 
slaughter. They thanked God when presently a sound 
of careless footsteps, of talk and laughter, broke upon 
the night; the Rifle Club men were returning In peace 
to their firesides. 

General Hunt, U. S. A., reported on the Charleston 
riot, November, 1876, when white men, going quietly 
to places of business, were molested by blacks, and young 
Ellicott Walker was killed. The morning after the 
election General Hunt "walked through the city and 
saw numbers of negroes assembled at corners of Meet- 
ing and Broad Streets," and was convinced there would 
be trouble, " though there was nothing in the manner of 
the whites gathered about the bulletin board to provoke 
it." Surgeon De Witt, U. S. A., told him "things 
looked bad on King and other streets where negroes 
insisted on pushing ladies off the sidewalks." 

When Walker was killed, and the real trouble began, 
General Hunt hurried to the Station House; the Mar- 
shal asked him for assistance; reports came In that 
negroes were tearing up trees and fences, assailing 
whites, and demanding arms of the police. General 
Hunt found at the Station House " a number of gentle- 
men, young and old," who offered aid. Marshal Wal- 
lace said, " But these are seditious Rifle Clubs." Said 
General Hunt, " They are gentlemen whom I can trust 
and I am glad to have them." Pending arrival of his 
troops, he placed them at the Marshal's disposal. The 
general relates: "They fell In with his forces; as I 



364 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

was giving instructions, he interposed, saying the matter 
was in his hands. He then started off. I heard that 
pohce were firing upon and bayonetting quiet white 
people. My troops arrived and additional white armed 
citizens. One of the civil authorities said It was essen- 
tial the latter be sent home. I declined sending these 
armed men on the streets, and directed them to take 
position behind my troops and remain there, which 
direction they obeyed Implicitly." 

With the Mayor and other Radical leaders General 
Hunt held conference; the negro police was aggravat- 
ing the trouble, he proposed that his troops patrol 
streets ; the mayor objected. " Why cannot the negroes 
be prevailed upon to go quietly home?" the General 
asked. " A negro has as much right to be on the streets 
armed as a white man." *' But I am not here to discuss 
abstract rights. A bloody encounter Is Imminent. 
These negroes can be sent home without difficulty by 
you, their leaders." " You should be able to guarantee 
whites against the negroes. If you can guarantee negroes 
against the whites." *' The cases are different. I have 
no control over the blacks through their reason or Intel- 
ligence. They have been taught that a Democratic 
victory will remand them to slavery. Their excited 
fears, however unfounded, are beyond my control. 
You, their leaders, can quiet and send them home. 
The city's safety Is at stake." The Mayor said he 
must direct General Hunt's troops; Hunt said he 
was in command. The Mayor wired Chamberlain to 
disband the Rifle Clubs "which were causing all the 
mischief." Hunt soon received orders to report at 
Washington. 

"Hampton is elected!" the people rejoiced. 
"Chamberlain is elected!" the Radicals cried, and dis- 
puted returns. The Radical Returning Board threw 




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BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 365 

out the Democratic vote in Laurens and Edgefield and 
made the House Radical. The State Supreme Court 
(Republican) ordered the Board to issue certificates to 
the Democratic members from these counties. The 
Board refused; the Court threw the Board in jail; the 
United States Court released the Board. The Supreme 
Court Issued certificates to these members. November 
28, 1876, Democrats organised in Carolina Hall, 
W. H. Wallace, Speaker; Radicals in the State House, 
with E. W. Mackey, Speaker, and counting in eight 
Radical members from Laurens and Edgefield. The 
Democratic House sent a message to the Radical Senate 
in the State House that it was ready for business. 
Senate took no notice. On Chamberlain's call upon 
President Grant, General Ruger was in Columbia with 
a Federal regiment. 

November 29, the Wallace House marched to the 
State House, members from Edgefield and Laurens in 
front. A closed door, guarded by United States troops, 
confronted them. J. C. Sheppard, Edgefield, began 
to read from the State House steps a protest, addressed 
to the crowd around the building and to the Nation. 
The Radicals, fearful of its effect, gave hurried consent 
to admission. Each representative was asked for his 
pistol and handed it over. At the Hall of Representa- 
tives, another closed and guarded door confronted them. 
They saw that they had been tricked and quietly 
returned to Carolina Hall. 

The people were deeply incensed. General Hampton 
was in town, doing his mightiest to keep popular indigna- 
tion in bounds. He held public correspondence with 
General Ruger, who did not relish the charge that he 
was excluding the State's representatives from the State 
House and promised that the Wallace House should 
not be barred from the outer door, over which he had 



366 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

control. But its members knew they took their lives 
in their hands when they started for the Hall. A com- 
mittee or advance guard of seven passed Ruger's guard 
at the outer door. Col. W. S. Simpson (now President 
of the Board of Directors of Clemson College), who 
was one of the seven, tells me : 

" On the first floor was drawn up a regiment of 
United States troops with fixed bayonets; all outside 
doors were guarded by troops. Upstairs in the large 
lobby was a crowd of negro roughs. Committee-rooms 
were filled with Chamberlain's State constables. Gen- 
eral Dennis, from New Orleans, a character of unsa- 
voury note, with a small army of assistants, was Door- 
keeper of the Hall. Within the Hall, the Mackey 
House, with one hundred or more sergeants-at-arms, 
was assembled, waiting Mackey's arrival to go into 
session." The seven dashed upstairs and for the door 
of the Hall. The doorkeepers, lolling in the lobby, 
rushed between them and the door and formed in line; 
committee presented certificates; doorkeepers refused to 
open the door. 

" Come, men, let's get at it! " cried Col. Alex. Has- 
kell, seizing the doorkeeper in front of him. Each 
man followed his example ; a struggle began ; the door 
parted in the middle; Col. Simpson, third to slip 
through, describes the Mackey House, " negroes chiefly, 
every man on his feet, staring at us with eyes big as 
saucers, mouths open, and nearly scared to death." 
Meanwhile, the door, lifted off its hinges, fell with a 
crash. The full Democratic House marched in, headed 
by Speaker Wallace, who took possession of the 
Speaker's chair. Members of his House took seats on 
the right of the aisle, negroes giving way and taking 
seats on the left. 

Speaker Wallace raised the gavel and called the 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 367 

House to order. Speaker Mackey entered, marched 
up and ordered Speaker Wallace to vacate the chair. 
Speaker Wallace directed his sergeant-at-arms to escort 
Mr. Mackey to the floor where he belonged. Speaker 
Mackey directed his sergeant-at-arms to perform that 
office for General Wallace. Each sergeant-at-arms 
made feints. Speaker Mackey took another chair on 
the stand and called the House to order. There was 
bedlam, with two Speakers, two clerks, two legislative 
bodies, trying to conduct business simultaneously ! The 
*' lockout " lasted four days and nights. Democrats 
were practically prisoners, daring not go out, lest they 
might not get in. Radicals stayed in with them, indi- 
vidual members coming and going as they listed, a few 
at a time. 

The first day, Democrats had no dinner or supper; 
no fire on their side of the House, and the weather bit- 
terly cold. Through nights, negroes sang, danced and 
kept up wild junketings. The third night Democrats 
received blankets through windows; meals came thus 
from friends outside; and fruit, of which they made 
pyramids on their desks. Two negroes came over from 
the Mackey side; converts were welcomed joyously, and 
apples, oranges and bananas divided. The opposition 
was enraged at defection; shouting, yelling and rowdy- 
ism broke out anew. Both sides were armed. The 
House on the left and the House on the right were con- 
stantly springing to their feet, glaring at each other, 
hands on pistols. Wallace sat In his place, calm and 
undismayed; Mackey In his, brave enough to compel 
admiration; more than once he ran over to the 
Speaker's stand, next to the Democratic side, and held 
down his head to receive bullets he was sure were 
coming. Yet between these armed camps, small human 
kindnesses and courtesies went on; and they joined In 



368 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

laughter at the comedy of their positions. Between 
Speakers, though, there was war to the knife, there 
was also common bond of misery. 

The third afternoon Democrats learned that their 
massacre was planned for that night. Negro roughs 
were congregating in the building; the Hunkidory 
Club, a noted gang of black desperadoes, were coming 
up from Charleston. A body of assassins were to be 
introduced into the gallery overlooking the floor of 
the Hall; here, even a small band could make short 
work its own way of any differences below. Chamber- 
lain informed Mackey; Mackey informed Wallace. 
Hampton learned of the conspiracy through Ruger; he 
said : " If such a thing is carried out, I cannot insure the 
safety of your command, nor the life of a negro in the 
State." The city seethed with repressed anxiety and 
excitement. Telegrams and runners were sent out; 
streets filled with newcomers, some in red shirts, some in 
old Confederate uniforms with trousers stuffed in boots, 
canteens slung over shoulders. Hampton's soldiers had 
come. 

Twenty young men of Columbia contrived, through 
General Ruger, it Is said, to get Into the gallery, thirty 
Into the Hall, the former armed with sledge-hammers 
to break open doors at first intimation of collision. 
The Hook and Ladder Company prepared to scale the 
walls. The train bringing the Hunkidory Club broke 
down In a swamp, aided possibly by some peace-loving 
agency. The crowding of Red Shirt and Rifle Clubs 
into the city took effect. The night passed In Intense 
anxiety, but In safety. Next day. Speaker Wallace read 
notification that at noon the Democrats, by order of 
President Grant, would be ejected by Federal troops If, 
before that time, they had not vacated the State House; 
in obedjenceLto^the^Federal Government, he and the 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 369 

other Democratic members would go, protesting, how- 
ever, against this Federal usurpation of authority. He 
adjourned the House to meet immediately in Carolina 
Hall. Blankets on their shoulders, they marched out. 
A tremendous crowd was waiting. Far as the eye 
could reach, Main Street was a mass of men, quiet and 
apparently unarmed. 

I have heard one of Hampton's old captains tell how 
things were outside the State House. " The young 
men of Columbia were fully armed. Clerks in our 
office had arms stowed away in desks and all around 
the rooms; we were ready to grab them and rush on 
the streets at a moment's notice. It was worse than 
war times. We had two cannon, loaded with chips of 
iron, concealed in buildings, and trained on the State 
House windows and to rake the street. We marched 
to the State House in a body. General Hampton had 
gone inside. He had told us not to follow him. He 
and General Butler, his aide, had been doing everything 
to keep us quiet. He knew we had come to Columbia 
to fight if need be. ' I will tell you,' he said, ' when 
it is time to fight. You have made me your governor, 
and, by Heaven, I will be your governor ! ' Again and 
again he promised that. Usually, we obeyed him like 
lambs. But we followed him to the State House. 

" Federal troops were stationed at the door. What 
right had they there? It was our State House ! Why 
could roughs and toughs and the motley crowd of earth 
go in, on a pass from Doorkeeper Dennis, a Northern 
rascal imported by way of New Orleans, while we, the 
State's own sons and taxpayers, could not enter? We 
pressed forward. We were told not to. We did not 
heed. We were ready not to heed even the crossed 
bayonets of the guard. Things are very serious when 
they reach that pass.. ^The guard in blue^used the 



370 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

utmost patience. Federal soldiers were in sympathy 
with us. Colonel Bomford,* their officer, ran up the 
State House steps, shouting : ' General Hampton 1 
General Hampton I For God's sake come down and 
send your men back 1 ' In an instant General Hampton 
was on the steps, calmly waving back the multitude: 
'All of you go back up the street. I told you not to 
come here. Do not come into collision with the Federal 
troops. I advise all, white and black, who care for the 
public welfare to go home quietly. You have elected 
me your Governor, and by the eternal God, I will be 
your Governor ! Trust me for that ! Now, go back ! ' 
We obeyed like children. On the other side of the 
State House a man ran frantically waving his hat and 
shouting : ' Go back ! go back ! General Hampton says 
go back 1 ' This man was ex-Governor Scott, who a 
few years before had raised a black army for the intimi- 
dation and subjugation of South Carolina ! " 

The Wallace House sat, until final adjournment, in 
South Carolina Hall, the Mackey House in the State 
House. Governor Chamberlain, with the town full of 
Rifle Clubs supposed to be thirsting for his gore, rode 
back and forth in his open carriage to the State House 
and occupied the executive offices there, refusing to 
resign them to General Hampton. He was inaugu- 
rated inside the "Bayonet House"; General Hampton 
in the open streets. General Hampton conducted the 
business of the State in two office-rooms furnished with 
Spartan simplicity. The Wallace "House said to the 
people : " Pay to tax collectors appointed by Governor 
Hampton, ten per cent of the tax rate you have been 
paying Governor Chamberlain's tax collectors, and we 
will run your Government on it." So the people paid 

* I think this was General Ruger or Colonel Black, but I let the 
name stand as my informant gave it. 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 371 

their tax to Hampton's collectors and to no others. 
Without money, the Chamberlain Government fell^ to 
pieces. 

Northern sentiment had undergone change. Tourists 
had spread far and wide the fame of Black and Tan 
Legislatures. Mr. Pike, of Maine, had written "The 
Prostrate State." In tableaux before a great mass-^ 
meeting and torchlight procession in New York, South 
Carolina had appeared kneeling in chains before the 
Goddess of Liberty. The North was protesting against 
misuse of Federal power in the South. General Sher- 
man said: "I have always tried to save our soldiers 
from the dirty work. I have always thought it wrong 
to bolster up weak State Governments by our troops." 
" Let the South alone ! " was the cry. One of Grant's 
last messages reflected this temper. President Hayes 
was exhibiting a spirit the South had not counted on. 
He sent for Hampton and Chamberlain to confer with 
him in Washington. The old hero's journey to the 
National Capital and back was an ovation. Soon after 
his return, Chamberlain resigned the keys and offices 
of the State House. Chamberlain was bitter and felt 
that the Federal Government had played him false. 

With Governor Nicholls established in Louisiana and 
Governor Hampton in South Carolina, the battle 
between the carpet-baggers and the native Southerners 
for their State Houses was over. The Federal soldiers 
packed up joyfully, and the Southerners cheered their 
departure. 

Louisiana had been engaged in a struggle very similar 
to South Carolina's. For three months she had two 
governors, two legislatures, two Supreme Courts. 
Again and again was her Capitol in a state of siege. 
Once two Republican parties faced each other in battle 
array for its possession — as two Republican parties 



372 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

had faced each other in Little Rock contending for 
Arkansas's Capitol. One morning, Louisianians woke 
to find the entrance commanded by United States Artil- 
lery posted on the "Midnight Order" of a drunken 
United States District Judge. Once a thousand 
negroes, impressed as soldiers, lived within the walls, 
eating, drinking, sleeping, until the place became 
unspeakably filthy and small-pox broke out. More than 
once for its possession there was warfare on the levees, 
bloodshed in barricaded streets. Once the citizens were 
marching joyfully to its occupation past the United 
States Custom House, and the United States soldiers 
crowded the windows, waved their caps and cheered. 
Once members were ejected by Federal force; Colonel 
de Trobriand regretting that he had the work to do 
and the Louisianans bearing him no grudge; It was, 
" Pardon me, gentlemen, I must put you out." " Pardon 
us, that we give you the trouble." 

These corrupt governments had glamours. Officials 
had money to burn. New Orleans was like another 
Monte Carlo for one while. Gambling parlours stood 
open to women and minors. Then was its twenty-five- 
year charter granted the Louisiana State Lottery. At 
a garden party in Washington not long ago, a Justice 
of the Supreme Court said in response to some question 
I put: "It would take the pen of a Zola to describe 
reconstruction in Louisiana ! It is so dark a chapter in 
our national history, I do not like to think of it." A 
Zola might base a great novel on that life and death 
struggle between politicians and races in the land of 
cotton and sugar plantations, the swamps and bayous 
and the mighty Mississippi, where the Carpet-Bag 
Governments had a standing army, of blacks chiefly, 
with cavalry, infantry, artillery, and navy of warships 
going up and down waterways; where prominent citi- 



BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 373 

zens were arrested on blank warrants, carried long 
distances, held for months; where women and children 
listened for the tramp, tramp, of black soldiers on 
piazzas, the crash of a musket on the door, the demand 
for the master or son of the house ! 

Dixie after the war is a mine for the romancer, histo- 
rian, ethnologist. Never before in any age or place 
did such conditions exist. The sudden investiture of 
the uncivilised slave with full-fledged citizenship wrought 
tragedy and comedy not ready to Homer's, Shakes- 
peare's or Cervantes's pen. The strange and curious 
race-madness of the American Republic will be a study 
for centuries to come. That madness took a child- 
race out of a warm cradle, threw it into the ocean of 
politics — the stormiest and most treacherous we have 
known — and bade it swim for its own life and the life 
of the nation ! 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Crime Against Womanhood 

The rapist is a product of the reconstruction period. 
In the beginning he commanded observation North less 
by reason of what he did than by reason of what was 
done unto him. His GhrysaHs was a uniform; as a 
soldier he could force his way into private homes, bully- 
ing and Insulting white women; he was often commis- 
sioned to tasks involving these things. He came Into 
life in the abnormal atmosphere of a time rife with 
discussions of social equality theories, contentions for 
coeducation and intermarriage. 

General Weitzel, resigning his command, wrote from 
La Fourche and La Teche to Butler in New Orleans : 
" I can not command these negro regiments. Women 
and children are in terror. It Is heartrending." * 
General Halleck wrote, April, 1865, to General 
Grant of a negro corps: "A number of cases of atro- 
cious rape by these men have already occurred. Their 
Influence on the coloured people Is reported bad. I 
hope you will remove it." Similar reports were made 
by other Federal officers. Governor Perry, of South 
Carolina, says : " I continued remonstrances to Secre- 
tary Seward on the employment of negro troops, gave 
detail of their atrocious conduct. At Newberry . . . 
(Crozler's story). A' Anderson, they protected and 



* See Sherman-Halleck correspondence in Sherman's " Memoirs " 
on " the inevitable Sambo." Also, W. T. Parker, U. S. A., on 
" The Evolution of the Negro Soldier," N. Amer. Rev., 1899. Lincoln 
disbanded the troops organised by General Hunter. 

377 



378 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

carried off a negro who had wantonly murdered his 
master. At Greenville, they knocked down citizens In 
the streets without slightest provocation. At Poco- 
tallgo, they entered a gentleman's house, and after tying 
him, violated the ladles." Mr. Seward wrote that 
Northern sentiment was sensitive about negro troops. 
When Governor Perry handed Generals Meade and 
Glllmore the Pocotallgo report, General Meade said 
he was opposed to negro troops and was trying 
to rid the army of them, but had to exercise great 
caution not to offend Northern sentiment. General 
Glllmore had some offenders executed. Federal com- 
manders largely relieved the South of black troops, 
but carpet-bag officials restored them In the form 
of mllltla. 

I have told elsewhere Crozler's story. Let me con- 
trast his slayers with a son of Industry It was my honour 
to know. Uncle Dick, my father's coachman. During 
the war, when my father had occasion to send a large 
sum In gold coin through the country, Uncle Dick car- 
ried It belted around his body under his shirt. My 
father's ward was attending the Southern Female Col- 
lege in Danville when the President and his Cabinet, 
fleeing from Richmond, reached that place. Knowing 
that Danville might become a fighting center, Mr, 
Williams T. Davis, Principal, wrote my father to send 
for Sue. The way to reach Danville was by private 
conveyance, seventy miles or more. Uncle Dick, 
mounted high on his carriage-box, a white-headed, black- 
faced knight-errant of chivalry, set forth. Nobody 
knew where the armies were. He might have to cut 
his horses loose from his carriage, mount Sue on one, 
himself take the other, and bring her through the forest. 
In due time the carriage rolled Into our yard. Uncle 
Dick proud and happy on his box, Sue Inside wrapped 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 379 

in rugs, sound asleep, for It was midnight. That is 
the way we could trust our black men. 

The following account by an ex-Confederate captain 
shows how General Schofield handled a case of the 
crime which is now under discussion : " A young 
white girl on her way to Sunday School was attacked 
by a negro; 'attempted' assault, the family said; it is 
usually put that way ; ' consummated ' nails the victim to 
a stake. Our people were in a state of terror; they 
seemed paralysed; they were inured to dispossession 
and outrage. No one seemed to know what to do. I 
picked up several young men and trailed down the 
ruffian. Then I sent a letter to General Schofield (with 
whom I had some acquaintance, as we had met each 
other hunting) , asking Instructions. He sent two 
detectives and a file of soldiers, requesting that I call 
for further assistance if occasion demanded. I wrote 
full statement of facts, had the girl's testimony taken 
in private; evidence was laid before General Schofield; 
the negro was sent to the penitentiary for eighteen 
years. The promptness of his action inspired people 
here with hope. We had no Ku Klux in Virginia — 
one reason, I have always thought, was the swift- 
ness with which punishment was meted out in that 
case." 

I have, as I believe, from Judge Lynch himself par- 
ticulars of another case in which, the law being inactive, 
citizens took justice Into their own hands : 

"Two young girls, daughters of a worthy German 
settler, were out to bring up cows, when attacked by a 
negro tramp ; they ran screaming, but were overtaken ; 
he seized the older; the younger, about ten years old, 
continued to run. Some passers on the nearest road, a 
private and lonely one, rushed to the relief of the older 
girl, who was making such outcry as she could. We 



38o DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

found her prostrate, the negro having her pinioned 
with one knee on either arm. His jack-knife open, was 
held between his teeth, and he was stuffing his handker- 
chief in her mouth to stifle her cries. We rescued her, 
took him prisoner, carried him to the nearest magistrate, 
a carpet-bag politician, who committed him to jail to 
await the action of the grand jury. He made his escape 
a few days afterward, was recaptured and relodged in jail. 
Ten days later a band was organised among respectable 
citizens in and around our town ; a Northern settler was 
a member. One detachment set out about dark for 
the rendezvous where they met a score more of resolute, 
armed men, some with masks, some without. They 
effected entrance Into the jail, but their way was arrested 
when they found the prisoner in a casemated cell, which 
other negroes readily pointed out, one offering a lamp ; a 
railroad section hand procured crow-bars with which the 
casemate was crushed in; the prisoner was taken in 
charge. He stood mute; seemed calm and unmoved; 
was put in a close carriage, the purpose being to drive 
him to the exact spot of his crime, but it coming on 
day, the company thought best to execute him at once. 
He was placed upon a mule; a rope attached to his 
neck was tied to the limb of a tree about ten feet above. 
The leader now learned of an intention to riddle 
his body with bullets when the drop occurred. Each 
member had pledged obedience to orders; each had 
been pledged to take no liquor for hours before, or 
during this expedition — pledges so far rigidly observed. 
The leader addressed them: 'We are here to avenge 
outrage on a helpless child, and to let it be well 
known that such crime shall not go unpunished in this 
community. But mutilation of this fiend's remains will 
be a reflection upon ourselves and not a dispensation of 
justice.' 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 381 

"The negro, seeing his end surely at hand, broke 
down, pleading for mercy; confessed that he had appre- 
ciated in advance the great peril in which his crime might 
place him, but had argued that, as a stranger, he would 
not be liable to identification, and that as the country 
was thickly wooded, he was sure of escape. ' But, fo' 
Gawd, gent'mun, ef a white man f'om de Norf hadn't 
put't in my hade dat a white 'oman warn' none too 
good fuh — ' 

"Word was given, and he dropped into eternity. 
It was broad daylight when the party got back to town. 
They overtook several negro men going to work who 
knew full well what they had been about. But there 
was no sign of protest or demur. The Common- 
wealth's Attorney made efforts to ascertain the perpe- 
trators of the deed, but as the company entered the 
town and jail so quietly and left it with so little disturb- 
ance that only one person in the village had knowledge 
of their coming and going, no one was discovered who 
could name a single member of the party or who had 
any Idea of whence they came or whither they went. 
So of course no Indictment could be found." This was 
In 1870; since then till now no similar crime has 
occurred In that community. Within the circumscribed 
radius of Its Influence, lynching seems to eradicate the 
evil for which administered. 

The moderation marking this execution has not 
always accompanied lynching. Reading accounts of 
unnecessary tortures inflicted, of very orgies of ven- 
geance, people remote from the scenes, Southerners no 
less than others, have shuddered with disgust, and 
trembled with concern for the dignity of their own race. 
Only people on the spot, writhing under the agony of 
provocation, comprehended the fury of response to the 
crime of crimes. VIgilants meant to make their awful 



382 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

vengeance effective deterrent to the crime's repetition. 
No other crime offers such problems to relatives and 
officers of justice and to the people among whom it 
occurs; It Is so outside of civilisation that there seem 
no terms for dispassionate discussion, no fine adjust- 
ment of civil trial and legal penalty. 

Listen to this out of the depths of one Southern 
woman's experience : " I stood once with other friends, 
who were trying to nurse her back to life and reason, 
by the bedside of a girl — a beautiful, gentle, high-born 
creature — who had been outraged. We were using all 
the skill and tact and tenderness at our command. It 
seemed impossible for her to have one hour's peaceful 
sleep. She would start from slumber with a shriek, 
look at us with dilated eyes, then clutch us and beg for 
help. But the most unspeakable pity of it all was her 
loathing for her own body; her prayers that she might 
die and her body be burned to ashes. I heard her 
physician say to an officer who came to take her depo- 
sition : ' I would be signing that girl's death warrant 
if I let you in there to make her tell that horrible story 
over again.' When a grim group came with some 
negroes they wanted to bring before her for identifica- 
tion, her brothers and her lover said : ' Only over our 
dead bodies.' " 

Lynching is inexcusable, even for this crime, which is 
comparable to no other, and to which murder Is a trifle. 
So we may coolly argue when the blow has not fallen 
upon ourselves or at our own door. When it has, we 
think there's a wolf abroad and we have lambs. Those 
to whom the wrecked woman is dear are quiveringly 
alive to her Irreparable wrong. The victim has rights, 
they argue ; if, unhappily for herself, she survive the out- 
rage, she is entitled to what poor remnants of reason 
may be left her; it is naturally their whole care to pre- 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 383 

serve her from memories that sear and craze, and from 
rehearsal before even the most private tribunal, of 
events that the merciful, even if not of her blood, must 
wish her to forget. Under such strain, men see as the 
one thing imperative the prompt and informal removal 
from existence of the offender, whom they look upon, 
not as man, but beast or fiend. 

The " poor white " is the most frequent sufferer from 
assault; the wife of the small farmer attending house- 
hold duties in her isolated home while her husband is 
in the fields or otherwise absent about his work; or 
the small farmer's daughter when she goes to the spring 
for water, or to the meadow for the cows, or trudges a 
lonely road or pathway to school; these are more con- 
venient material than the lady of larger means and 
higher station, who is more rarely unattended. In cases 
on record the ravished and slain were children, five, six, 
eight years old; in others, mothers with babies at their 
breasts, and the babies were slain with the mothers. 
Here is a case cited by Judge M. L. Dawson: A 
negro raped and slew a farmer's five-year-old child. 
Arrested, tried, convicted, appealed, sentence reversed, 
reappealed (on insanity plea) ; people took him out and 
hung him. 

In full-volumed indignation over lynching, the usual 
course of the Northern press was to almost lose sight 
of the crime provoking it. It was a minor fact that a 
woman was violated, that her skull was crushed or that 
she sustained other injuries from which she died or 
which made her a wreck for life — particulars too trivial 
to be noted by moulders of public opinion writing elo- 
quent essays on *' Crime in the South." Picking up a 
paper with this glaring headline, one would have a right 
to expect some outburst of indignation over the ravish- 
ment and butchering of womanhood. But there would 



384 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

be editorial after editorial rife with invectives against 
lynching and lynchers, righteous with indignation over 
"lawlessness In the South," and not one word of sym- 
pathy or pity for the white victim of negro lust 1 The 
fact that there was such a victim seemed lost sight of; 
the crime for which the negro was executed would often 
escape everything but bare mention, sometimes that. 
What deductions were negroes to draw from such dis- 
tinctions, except that lynching was monstrous crime, rape 
an affair of little moment, and strenuous objection to it 
only one feature of damnable " Race Prejudice In the 
South"? 

''They do not care, the men and women of the 
North," I have heard a Southern girl exclaim, " if we 
are raped. They do not care that we are prisoners of 
fear, that we fear to take a ramble in the woods alone, 
fear to go about the farms on necessary duties, fear 
to sit in our houses alone; fear, if we live In cities, to 
go alone on the streets at hours when a woman is safe 
anywhere In Boston or New York." 

From the Northern attitude as reflected In the press 
and In the pulpit, negroes drew their own conclusions. 
Violation of a white woman was no harm; Indeed, as a 
leveler of social distinctions. It might almost be con- 
strued into an act of grace. The way to become a 
hero In the eyes of the white North and to win the 
crown of martyrdom for oneself and new outbursts of 
sympathy for one's race was to assault a white woman 
of the South. This crime was a development of a 
period when the negro was dominated by political, relig- 
ious and social advisers from the North and by the 
attitude of the Northern press and pulpit. It was 
practically unknown in wartime, when negroes were left 
on plantations as protectors and guardians of white 
women and children. 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 385 

"There was only one case,* as far as the writer can 
ascertain, of the negro's crime against womanhood dur- 
ing all the days of slavery," said Professor Stratton in 
the " North American Review " a few years ago, " while 
his fidelity and simple discharge of duty during the 
Civil War when the white men were away fighting 
against his liberty have challenged the admiration of the 
world; but since he has been made free, his increase in 
crime and immorality has gone side by side with his 
educational advancement — and even in greater ratio." 
The Professor gave figures, as others have done, which 
proved his case, if figures can prove anything. Con- 
sidered with reference to the crime under discussion, it 
is difficult to see how purely intellectual training tends 
to its increase, if there is any truth in the doctrine that 
brain development effects a reduction of animal propen- 
sities. Only in moral education, however, rests any real 
security for conduct. Negroes educated and negroes 
uneducated, in a technical sense, have committed this 
crime.f 

The rapist is not to be taken as literal index to race 
character; he is an excrescence of the times; his crime 
is a horror that must be wiped out for the honour of 

* In Boston, 1676. I suppose this is the case meant as it rests 
on court records. " The Nation," 1903, published letters showing 
four specific cases from slavery's beginning to 1864; that just cited, 
one mentioned in Miss Martineau's " Society in America " ; one 
reported in " Leslie's Weekly," 1864 ; one reported in a periodical 
not named. In the earliest days of slavery, laws enacted against 
negro rape (the penalty was burning) seem to show that the crime 
existed or that the Colonists feared it would exist. The fact that 
during the War of Secession, Southern men left their families in 
negro protection is proof conclusive that this tendency, if inherent, 
had been civilised out of the race. 

t For other reasons for rape than I have given see " The Negro ; 
The Southerner's Problem," by Thomas Nelson Page, p. 112, and 
"The American Negro," by William Hannibal Thomas (negro), pp. 
65. 176-7, 223. 



386 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

the land, the security of womanhood, the credit of our 
negro citlzenhood. The weapon for its destruction is 
in the hands of Afro- Americans; overwhehning senti- 
ment on their part would put an end to it; they should 
be the last to stand for the rapist's protection; rather 
should they say to him : " You are none of us 1 " They 
should be quick to aid in his arrest, identification and 
deliverance to the law. Such attitude would be more 
effective than any other one force that can be brought to 
bear upon this crime and that of lynching. I chronicle 
here as worthy of record, that in June, 1870, William 
Stimson, rapist, was tried before a negro jury, convicted 
on negro evidence, and hung November 4. This hap- 
pened in North Carolina during negro rule. 

The negro guilty of this hideous offense has com- 
mitted against his race a worse crime than lynching can 
ever be. By the brutish few the many are judged — 
particularly when the many In vociferous condemnation 
of the penalty visited upon the criminal seem to con- 
done his awful iniquity against themselves. Black men 
who have been and will be womanhood's protectors out- 
number the beasts who wear like skins as many thou- 
sands to one; and It is not fair to themselves that they 
pursue any course, utter any sentiment, which causes 
them to be classed in any way whatever with these. 
Black men are seeing this and are setting their faces 
towards stamping out the crime which causes lynching. 
Utterances from some of their pulpits and resolutions 
passed by some of their religious bodies Indicate this. 

The occurrence of rapes, lynchlngs and burnings In the 
North and West has had beneficial Influence upon the 
question at large. It has led white people of other 
sections to understand In some degree the Southern situa- 
tion and to express condemnation of the crime that leads 
to lynching. The attitude of the Northern press has 



CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 387 

undergone great change in recent years, change effective 
for reform, in that while lynching is as severely under 
the ban as ever — which it should be — the companion 
crime goes with it. Southern sentiment is against lynch- 
ing; I recall seven governors — Aycock of North Caro- 
lina, Montague of Virginia, Heyward of South Caro- 
lina, Candler and Terrell of Georgia, Jelks of 
Alabama, Vardaman of Mississippi — who have so 
placed themselves conspicuously on record. All our 
newspapers have done so, I believe, from the "Times- 
Dispatch" of Richmond, the Charlotte "Observer," 
the "Constitution" and the "Journal" of Atlanta, the 
" State " of Columbia, the Charleston "News-Courier," 
the Savannah "News," to the "Times-Democrat" of 
New Orleans, and "Times-Union" of Jacksonville. 

One hope and promise of the new constitutions 
with which Southern States lately replaced the Black 
and Tan instruments is the eradication of this 
method of procedure. Soon after Virginia adopted 
hers, three negro rapists in that State received 
legal trial and conviction and not over hasty execu- 
tion. On motion of District Attorney E. C. Goode, 
reprieve was granted after conviction that a case 
in Mecklenburg might be looked into more fully. Such 
deliberation has not been exceeded — if, indeed, it has 
been equaled — north of Mason & Dixon's line. But 
as long as rapes are committed, so long will there be 
danger of lynchings, not only in the South, but any- 
where else. In the presence of this worse than savage 
crime the white race suffers reversion to savagery. 



RACE PREJUDICE 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Race Prejudice 

As LATE as 1890, Senator Ingalls said: "The use of 
the torch and dagger Is advised. I deplore it, but as 
God is my judge, I say that no people on this earth have 
ever submitted to the wrongs and injustice which have 
been put upon the coloured men of the South without 
revolt and bloodshed." Others spoke of the negro's 
use of torch and sword as his only way to right himself 
in the South. When prominent men in Congressional 
and legislative halls and small stump speakers every- 
where fulminated such sentiments, the marvel would 
have been if race prejudice had not come to birth and 
growth. Good men, whose homes were safe, and who 
in heat of oratory or passion for place, forgot that other 
men's homes were not, had no realisation of the effect 
of their words upon Southern households, where inmates 
lay down at night trembling lest they wake in flames or 
with black men shooting or knifing them. 

But for a rooted and grounded sympathy and affection 
between the races that fierce and newly awakened preju- 
dice could not kill, the Sepoy massacres of India would 
have been duplicated in the South in the sixties and 
seventies. Under slavery, the black race held the heart 
of the white South In its hands. Second only In author- 
ity to the white mother on a Southern plantation, was 
the black mammy; hoary-headed white men and women, 
young men and maidens and little children, rendered her 
reverence and love. Little negroes and little white 
children grew up together, playing together and form- 

391 



392 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ing ties of affection equal to almost any strain. The 
servant was dependent upon his master, the master 
upon his servant. Neither could afford to disregard 
the well-being of the other. No class of labour on 
earth today is as well cared for as were the negroes 
of the Old South. Age was pensioned, infancy shel- 
tered. There was a state of mutual trust and confi- 
dence between employer and employee that has been 
seen nowhere else and at no time since between capital 
and labour. 

Had the negro remained a few centuries longer the 
white man's dependant, often an Inmate of his home, 
and his close associate on terms not raising questions 
and conflicts, his development would have proceeded. 
Through the processes of slavery, the negro was peace- 
ably evolving, as agriculturist, shepherd, blacksmith, 
mechanic, master and mistress of domestic science, 
towards citizenship — inevitable when he should be ready 
for It; citizenship all the saner, because those who were 
training him were unconscious of what they were doing 
and contemplated making no political use of him. They 
were intent only on his Industrial and moral education. 
His evolution was set back by emancipation. 

Yet, If destruction of race identity is advancement, 
the negro will advance. The education which he began 
to receive with other Greek gifts of freedom has taught 
him to despise his skin, to loath his race Identity, to 
sacrifice all native dignity and nobility In crazy antics 
to become a white man. "Social equality!" those 
words are to be his doom. It Is a pity that the phrase 
was ever coined. It is not to say that one Is better than 
the other when we say of larks and robins, doves and 
crows, eagles and sparrows, that they do not flock 
together. They are different rather than unequal. 
Difference does not, of Itself, Imply Inequality. To 



RACE PREJUDICE 393 

ignore a difference inherent in nature is a crime against 
nature and is punished accordingly by nature. 

The negro race in America is to be wiped out by the 
dual process of elimination and absorption. The negro 
will not be eliminated as was the Indian — though the 
way a whole settlement of blacks was made to move on 
a few years ago in Illinois, looks as if history might 
repeat itself in special instances. Between lynchings 
and race riots in the North and West and those in the 
South there has usually been this difference : in the 
former, popular fury included entire settlements, pun- 
ishing the innocent with the guilty; in the latter, it 
limited itself to the actual criminal. Another difference 
between sectional race problems. I was in New York 
during Subway construction when a strike was threat- 
ened, and overheard two gentlemen on the elevated road 
discussing the situation : " The company talks of bring- 
ing the blacks up here." " If they do, the tunnel will 
run blood ! These whites will never suffer the blacks 
to take their work." I thought, "And negroes have 
had a monopoly of the South's industries and have 
scorned it!" I thought of jealous white toilers in the 
slime of the tunnel; and of Dixie's greening and golden 
fields, of swinging hoes and shining scythes and the 
songs of her black peasantry. And I thought of her 
stalwart black peasants again when I walked through 
sweat-shops and saw bent, wizened, white slaves. 

The elimination of the negro will be in ratio to the 
reduction of his potentiality as an industrial factor. 
Evolutionary processes reject whatever has served its 
use. History shows the white man as the exponent of 
evolution. There were once more Indians here than 
there are now negroes. Yet the Indian has almost 
disappeared from the land that belonged to him when 
a little handful of palefaces came and found him in their 



394 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

way. Had he been of use, convertible into a labourer, 
he would have been retained; he was not so convertible, 
and other disposition was made of him while we sent 
to Africa for what was required. The climate of the 
North did not agree with the negro; he was not a 
profitable labourer; he disappeared. He was a satis- 
factory labourer South; he throve and multiplied. He 
is not now a satisfactory labourer in any locality. What 
is the conclusion if we judge the white man's future by 
his past? 

The white man does not need the negro as litterateur, 
statesman, ornament to society. Of these he has enough 
and to spare, and seeks to reduce surplus. What he 
needs Is agricultural labour. The red man would not 
till the soil, and the red man went; if the black man 
will not, perhaps the yellow man will. Sporadic 
instances of exceptional negroid attainments may inter- 
est the white man — In circumscribed circle — for a time. 
But the deep claim, the strong claim, the commanding 
claim would be that the negro filled a want not other- 
wise supplied, that the negro could and would do for 
him that which he cannot well do for himself — for 
Instance, work the rice and cotton lands where the negro 
thrives and the white man dies. 

The American negro Is passing. The mulatto, quad- 
roon, octoroon, strike the first notes In the octave of his 
evolution — or his decadence, or extinction, or whatever 
you may call It. The black negro is rare North and 
South. Negroes go North, white Northerners come 
South. In States sanctioning Intermarriage, Irregular 
connections obtain as elsewhere between white men and 
black women ; and. In addition, between black men and 
white women of most degraded type or foreigners who 
are without the saving American race prejudice. Recent 
exposure of the "White Slave Syndicate " In New York 



RACE PREJUDICE 395 

which kidnapped white girls for negro bagnios, Is fresh 
In the public mind. 

Under slavery many negroes learned to value and to 
practice virtue; many value and practice It now; but 
the freedwoman has been on the whole less chaste 
than the bond. With emancipation the race suffered 
relapse In this as In other respects. The South did not 
do her whole duty In teaching chastity to the savage, 
though making more patient, persistent and heroic strug- 
gle than accredited with. The charge that under slavery 
miscegenation was the result of compulsion on the part 
of the superior race finds answer In Its continuance since. 
Because he was white, the crying sin was the white 
man's, but It Is just to remember that the heaviest part 
of the white racial burden was the African woman, of 
strong sex Instincts and devoid of a sexual conscience, 
at the white man's door, In the white man's dwelling.* 

In 1900, negroes constituted 20.4 per cent, of the 
population of Texas, the lowest rate for the Southern 
States; in Mississippi, 58.6, the highest. In Massa- 
chusetts, they were less than two per cent. Ques- 
tions of social Intermingling can not be of such practical 
and poignant concern to Massachusetts as to Mississippi, 
where amalgamation would result In a population of 
mulatto degenerates. Prohibitions are protective to 
both races. Fortunately, miscegenation proceeds most 
slowly In the sections of negro concentration, the sugar 
and cotton lands of the lower South. In these. It Is also 
said, there Is lower percentage of negro crime of all 
kinds than where negroes are of lighter hue. 

Thinkers of both races have declared amalgamation 
an Improbable, undesirable conclusion of the race ques- 



* " The Negro in Africa and America," J. A. TilHnghast. On 
miscegenation see " The Color Line," W. B. Smith ; also A. R. 
Colquhoun, N. Amer. Rev., May, 1903. 



396 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tion; that It would be a propagation of the vices of 
both races and the virtues of neither. In a letter 
(March 30, 1865) to the Louisville " Courier-Journal," 
recently reproduced in "The Outlook," Mr. Beecher 
said: "I do not think it wise that whites and blacks 
should mix blood . . . it is to be discouraged on 
grounds of humanity." Senator Ingalls said: "Fred 
Douglas once said to me: 'The races will blend, 
coalesce, and become homogeneous.' I do not agree 
with him. There is no affinity between the races; this 
solution is impossible. . . . There is no blood- 
poison so fatal as the adulteration of race." 

At the Southern Educational Conference in Columbia, 
1905, Mr. Abbott, in one of the clearest, frankest 
speeches yet heard from our Northern brotherhood, 
declared the thinking North and South now one upon 
these points : the sections were equally responsible for 
slavery; the South fought, not to perpetuate slavery, 
but on an issue " that had its beginning before the adop- 
tion of the Federal Constitution ; " racial integrity should 
be preserved. In one of the broadest, sanest discus- 
sions of the negro problem to which the American public 
has been treated, Professor Eliot, of Harvard, has said 
recently: "Northern and Southern opinion are iden- 
tical with regard to keeping the races pure — that is, 
without admixture of the one with the other . 
inasmuch as the negroes hold the same view, this sup- 
posed danger of mutual racial impairment ought not 
to have much influence on practical measures. Admix- 
ture of the two races, so far as it proceeds, will be, as It 
has been, chiefly the result of sexual vice on the part 
of white men ; it will not be a wide-spread evil, and it 
will not be advocated as a policy or method by anybody 
worthy of consideration." 

" It will not be a wide-spread evil I " The truth stares 



RACE PREJUDICE 397 

us in the face. Except In the lower South the black 
negro is now almost a curiosity. In any negro gather- 
ing the gamut of colour runs from ginger-cake to white 
rivaling the Anglo-Saxon's; and according as he is more 
white, the negro esteems himself more honourable than 
his blacker fellow; though these gradations in colour 
which link him with the white man, were he to judge 
himself by the white man's standard, would be, gener- 
ally speaking, badges of bastardy and shame. 

In Florida, a tourist remarked to an orange-woman: 
*' They say Southerners do not believe in intermingling 
of the races. But look at all these half-white coons! " 
" Well, Marster," she answered, " don't you give 
Southern folks too much credit fuh dat. Rich Yankees 
in de winter-time; crap uh white nigger babies in de 
fall. Fus' war we all had down here, mighty big crap 
uh yaller babies come up. Arter de war 'bout Cuba, 
'nother big crap come 'long. Nigger gal ain' nuvver 
gwi have a black chile ef she kin git a white one I " 
Blanch, my negro hand-maiden, is comely, well-formed, 
black; the descendant of a series of honest marriages, 
yet feels herself at a disadvantage with quadroons and 
octoroons not nearly her equals in point of good looks 
or principle. '' I'd give five hundred dollars ef I had 
it, ef my ha'r was straight," she tells me with pathetic 
earnestness; and "I wish I had been born white!" is 
her almost heart-broken moan.* She would rather be 
a mulatto bastard than the black product of honest 
wedlock. 

The integrity of the races depends largely upon the 
virtue of white men and black women; also, it rests on 
the negroid side upon the aspiration to become white, 
acknowledgment in itself of inferiority and self-loathing. 

* Fakirs, taking advantage of the general racial weakness, are 
selling " black skin removers," " hair straighteners," etc. 



J98 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

The average negress will accept, invite, with every wile 
she may, the purely animal attention of a "no-count 
white man " in preference to marriage with a black. 
The average mulatto of either sex considers union with 
a black degradation. The rainbow of promise span- 
ning this gloomy vista is the claim that the noble 
minority of black women who value virtue is on the 
increase as the race, in self-elevation, recognises more 
and more the demands of civilisation upon character, 
and that dignity of racehood which will not be ashamed 
of its own skin or covet the skin of another. The 
virtuous black woman is the Deborah and the Miriam 
of her people. She is found least often in crowded 
cities, North and South; most often in Southern rural 
districts. Wherever found, she commands the white 
man's respect. 

Hope should rest secure in the white man. If the 
faith of his fathers, the flag of his fathers, the Union of 
his fathers, are worthy of preservation, is not the blood 
of his fathers a sacred trust also? Besides, before 
womanhood, whatever its colour or condition, how- 
ever ready to yield or appeal to his grosser senses, the 
white man should throw the aegis of his manhood and 
his brotherhood. 

The recent framing of State Constitutions in the 
South to supersede the Black and Tan creations revived 
the charge of race prejudice because their suffrage 
restrictions would in great degree disfranchise the negro. 
As compared with discussion of any phase of the race 
issue some years ago, the spirit of comment was cool 
and fair. "The Outlook" led in justifying the South 
for protecting the franchise with moderate property and 
educational qualifications applying to both races, criti- 
cising, however, the provision for deciding upon educa- 
tional fitness — a provision which Southerners admit 



RACE PREJUDICE 399 

needs amendment. One effect of these restrictions will 
be to stimulate the negro's efforts to acquire the neces- 
sary education or the necessary three hundred dollars' 
worth of property. Another effect will be decrease of 
the white farmer's scant supply of negro labour; this 
scarcity, in attracting white immigrants, provides anti- 
dote for Africanisation of the South. 

As to whether negro ownership of lands improves 
country or not, I will give a Northern view. I met in 
1903 at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, a wealthy 
Chicagoan and his wife (originally from Massachu- 
setts) , who were looking for a holiday residence in Tide- 
water Virginia. They made various excursions with 
land agents, and one day reported discovery of their 
Ideal in all respects but one. "The people around are 
ruining property by selling lands to negroes. A gentle- 
man at whose house we stopped, a Northerner, had just 
bought, as he told us, at much inconvenience, a planta- 
tion adjoining his own to make sure it would not be cut 
up and sold by degrees to negroes." I hear Southern 
farmers in black belts say: "I had much rather have 
a quiet, orderly negro for neighbour than a troublesome 
white." But the fact remains that negro ownership of 
property reduces value of adjoining lands. Besides the 
social reason, the average negro exhausts and does not 
improve lands. 

"Why don't the negroes live up North?" one is 
asked; "they go up there and make a little money and 
come back and buy lands." 

" Land is cheap here. It is almost beyond their 
reach there. The climate here appeals. Then, this 
is home." Thus I answered in 1902, in Southside, 
Virginia. After further travel, I amend: Negroes 
do not wish to work for white land-owners; they 
wish to remain in the South or to return to the South, 



400 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

as land-owners. They are acquiring considerable 
property. But, generally speaking, they are thinning 
out. One may journey miles along Southern railroads 
and see but few in fields where once were thou- 
sands. In Northern cities and pleasure resorts negroes 
increase. The race problem is broadening, changing 
territory. 

The daughter of an Ohioan gave me a glimpse of this 
changing base. " Columbus negroes — those born there 
or who came there long ago, are very different from 
Southern negroes. They will have nothing to do with 
the negroes coming direct. The Southern negroes have 
nice, deferential manners; the Northern negroes hate 
them for it. Columbus negroes — why, they will push 
white ladles off the streets! " In a New York store in 
1904, I observed two negresses in a crowd near a 
windov/ where articles of baggage were on check. 
They pushed their way to the front and demanded 
belongings without the courteous "please" which any 
Southerner, or which Northern gentlefolks, would have 
used; the young white girl in charge — it was a hot day 
and she looked faint — was doing her cheerful best to 
meet the noon rush, but was not quick enough for the 
coloured persons; they hurried and reproved her; as 
she turned about within, confused by their descriptions 
and commands, they exclaimed: "That's it! Right 
befo' you ! Don't you see that case right there? What 
a fool!" She never thought of resenting; came up 
humbly, loaded with their property, glad to have found 
it. Their manners would have scandalised a black aris- 
tocrat of the Old South. 

We cannot afford to wrong this race as we wronged 
the Indian. We must aid the negro's advancement in 
the right direction. But we should not discriminate 
against the white race. Educational doors are open to 



RACE PREJUDICE 401 

the negro throughout the land ; the South is rich In noble 
institutions of learning for him; In black belts Southern- 
ers are paying more to educate black children than 
white. In black belts, In white belts, in the mountains, 
white children are put into fields and factories when they 
ought to be going to school. Educational odds are 
against the white children. In regard to schools of 
manual training, to limit the negro to these and these 
to the negro Is to put a stigma on manual labor In the 
eyes of white youth and to continue the negro's monop- 
oly of a field which he does not appreciate. We should 
do more educationally for the white child and not less 
for the negro. The negro pays small percentage of 
the Southern educational tax and enjoys full benefits. 
The negro needs to realize that If the white man owes 
him a debt, he owes the white man one; and that he 
cannot safely despise the school of service in house and 
field which white people from Europe and yellow people 
from the Orient are eager to enter. 

I would close no door of opportunity to the negro. But 
I must say my affection is for the negro of the old order. 
I owe reverence to the memory of a black mammy and 
a debt to negroes generally for much kindness. The real 
negro I like, the poet of the veldt and jungle, the singer 
in field and forest, the tiller of the soil, the shepherd 
of the flocks, the herdsman of the cattle, the happy, 
soft-voiced, light-footed servitor. The negro who is 
a half-cut white man is not a negro, and it can 
be no offense to the race to say that he is unat- 
tractive when compared with the dear old darkey of 
Dixie who was worth a million of him ! At Fort Mill, 
S. C, hard by a monument to a forgotten people, 
the Catawba Indians, stands a monument to the " Faith- 
ful Slaves of the Confederacy," type of a memo- 
rial many hearts yet hold. The new negro, in reaching 



402 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

out for higher and better things than the old attained, 
will be wise not to sacrifice those qualities which told in 
his ancestor in spite of all shortcomings. 

The one true plane of equalisation is that of mutual 
service, each race doing for the other all it can. The 
old negro and the white man stood more surely on this 
plane than do their descendants, yet not more surely 
than all must wish their descendants to stand. My 
regard for the negro, my pride in what he has really 
accomplished under the hammering of civilisation, call, 
in his behalf, for a race pride and reserve in him which 
shall match the Anglo-Saxon's. There are negroes who 
have it and who deplore efforts placing them in the 
position of postulants for a social intermingling which 
they do not consider essential to their dignity or happi- 
ness.* Between blacks and whites South we constantly 
see race pride maintained on one side as on the other 
while humanities are observed in manifold exchanges 
of kindness and courtesy that make a bond of brother- 
hood.* Whatever position the white Southerner takes 
theoretically on manufactured race issues, he will usually 
fight rather than see his inoffensive black neighbour or 
employe maltreated; his black neighbour or employe 
will often do as much for him. This attitude is some- 
times an expression of the clan habit surviving the 
destruction of clan-life (old plantation-life in which the 
white man was Chief and his negroes his clansmen) ; 
also, it exists in the recognition of a common bond of 
humanity more than skin deep. Upon this rock the 
•future may be builded.* As a useful, industrious, 
citizen, the negro is his own argument and advocate.* 



* See Council, Penn, and Spencer, " Voice of Missions " (H. B. 
Parks, Ed.), Sept., Nov., Dec, Tooq. See Booker T. Washington's 
" Up from Slavery," " Character Building," " Future of the American 
Negro." 



MEMORIAL DAY 



Daughters of all the Southl Sons of all the 
South! We, your own old soldiers, pause a moment 
this day in our march and facing to the front, touch- 
ing eternity on our right, we stand erect before you 
as if on dress parade. We know that the day of our 
personal presence has passed its noon, but we would 
cast no shadow upon the land we leave to you and 
yours, nor raise one barrier to your full possession 
of local and national rights. We are but the living 
Color Guard of the great army of your Southern 
fathers, and their history and honor are safely in 
your keeping. The war flag of precious memory 
waves peacefully above us, and we ask you for our 
sakes, and its own sake, to love it forever. The 
Star-spangled Banner of our country waves over all 
of us and over all our States and people, command- 
ing the respect of every nation. Let it never be 
dishonored. With the feeling of pride that we are 
Confederate soldiers, we salute you, not by present- 
ing arms, but with the salutations of our beating 
hearts. And now we will march on, march forward 
In column: and, as we go you will hear from us the 
echo of the angels' song — Peace on earth, good 
will to men. — From an address by General Clem- 
ent A . Evans, Commander of the Georgia Divi- 
sion, U. C. v.. Memorial Day, 1995, Atlanta, Ga. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Memorial Day and Decoration Day. Confed- 
erate Societies 

Peculiar interest attaches to the Inauguration of 
Memorial Day in Richmond, in 1866, when Northern- 
ers, watching Southerners cover the graves of their dead 
with flowers, went afterwards and did likewise, thus 
borrowing of us their "Decoration Day" and with it 
a custom we gladly share with them.* In Hollywood 
and Oakwood slept some 36,000 Southern soldiers, rep- 
resenting every Confederate State. On April 19, Oak- 
wood Memorial Association "was founded by a little 
band in the old Third Presbyterian Church, after prayer 
by Rev. Dr. Proctor." The morning of May 10 a crowd 
gathered in St. John's Church, t and after simple exer- 
cises led by Dr. Price and Dr. Norwood, " the proces- 
sion, numbering five hundred people, walking two and 
two, their arms loaded with spring's sweetest flowers, 
walked out to Oakwood" and strewed with these the 
Confederate graves. May 3, the Hollywood Memorial 
Association was formed, and May 31 was its first 
Memorial Day. The day before, an extraordinary pro- 
cession wended its way to the cemetery. 



* " ' Decoration Day,' a legal holiday. The custom of * Memorial 
Day/ as it is otherwise called, originated with the Southern States 
and was copied scatteringly in Northern States. On May S, 1868, 
General John A. Logan, then Commander-in-Chief of the Grand 
Army of the Republic, issued an order appointing May 30." — Ency- 
clopedia Americana. 

t In this church, Patrick Henry said : _" Give me liberty or give 
me death ! " 

*i,405 



4o6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

The young men of Richmond, the flower of the city, 
marched to Hollywood, armed with picks and spades, 
and numbering in their long line, moving with the swing 
of regulars, remnants of famous companies, whose gal- 
lantry had made them shining marks on many a desper- 
ate battlefield. " It was a striking scene," wrote a wit- 
ness, " as the long line filed by, not as in days of yore 
when attired in gray and bearing the glittering muskets, 
they were wont to step to the strains of martial music 
while the Stars and Bars of the young Republic floated 
above them; but In citizens' garbs, bearing the peaceful 
implements of agriculture, performing a pilgrimage to 
the shrine of departed valour." It was symbolic. The 
South sought to honour her past in peaceful ways, and to 
repair by patient Industry the ravages of war, wielding 
cheerfully weapons of progress to which her hands 
were as yet unaccustomed. As the soldier-citizens 
marched along, people old and young, by ones and twos 
and threes, or in organised bodies, fell into the ever- 
lengthening line. At the cemetery, the pick-and-spade 
bearers were divided Into squads and companies, and 
under the direction of commanders, worked all day, 
raking off rubbish, rounding up graves, planting head- 
boards and otherwise bringing about order. Old men 
and little boys helped. Negroes faithful to the memory 
of dead friends and owners were there, busy as the 
whites In love's labour. Several men In Federal uniform 
lent brotherly hands. When the sun went down the 
place was transformed. That first fair Memorial Day 
looked as though It were both Sabbath and Saints' Day. 
Over or on doors of business houses was the legend, gar- 
landed with flowers or framed In mourning drapery: 
'* Closed In Honour of the Confederate Dead." Fed- 
eral soldiers walking the quiet streets would pause and 
study^these. symbols of grief and reverence. Carloads 




MRS. REBECCA CALHOUN PICKENS BACON 

Daughter of Francis W. Pickens, the "Secession Gove.nor" of South 

Carolina; organizer of the D. A. R. in her state. 



MEMORIAL DAY 407 

of flowers poured into the city. Every part of the 
South in touch with Richmond by rail or wagon sent con- 
tribution. Grace Church was a floral depot; maids, 
matrons and children met there early to weave blossoms 
and greenery into stars, crosses, crowns and flags — their 
beloved Southern cross. Vehicles lent by express and 
hotel companies formed floral caravanseries moving 
towards the cemetery. 

Then, another procession wound its way to Holly- 
wood, the military companies and the populace, flower- 
laden, and a long, long line of children, many orphans. 
There were few or no carriages. The people had none. 
Old and young walked. The soldiers' section was soon 
like one great garden of roses white and red; of gleam- 
ing lilies and magnolias ; of all things sweet-scented, gay 
and beautiful. Scattered here and there like forget-me- 
nots over many a gallant sleeper was the blue badge in 
ribbon or blossom of the Richmond Blues. Thousands 
visited the green hillside where General Jeb Stuart lay, 
a simple wooden board marking the spot; his grave was 
a mound of flowers. From an improvised niche of 
evergreens, Valentine's life-like bust of the gay chevalier 
smiled upon old friends. No hero, great or lowly, was 
forgotten. What a tale of broken hearts and desolate 
homes far away the many graves told ! Here had the 
Texas Ranger ended his march; here had brave lads 
from the Land of Flowers and all the States intervening 
bivouacked for a long, long night, from whose slumbers 
no bugle might wake them. What women and children 
standing in lonely doorways, hands shading their eyes, 
watched for the coming of these marked "Unknown " I 
^ Little Joe Davis' lonely grave was a shrine on which 
children heaped offerings as they marched past in pro-' 
cession, each dropping a flower, until one must thrust 
flowers aside to read the inscriptions that make of that 



4o8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tiny tomb a mlle-stone in American history — "Joseph, 
Son of our Beloved President, Jefferson Davis," 
"Erected by the little boys and girls of the Southern 
Capital." As blossoms fell, the hearts of the flower- 
strewers beat tenderly for little Joe's father, then the 
Prisoner of Fortress Monroe, and for his troubled 
mother and her living children. 

In freedom to honour the Confederate dead by public 
parade, Virginia was more fortunate than North Caro- 
lina. In Raleigh, the people were not allowed to march 
in procession to the cemetery for five long years. Yet, 
even so, the old North State faithfully observed the 
custom of decorating her graves at fixed seasons, the 
people going out to the cemetery by twos and threes. 
Indeed, the claim has been made that Dixie's first 
Memorial Day was observed in Raleigh rather than in 
Richmond, and the story of it is too sad for telling. 
March 12, 1866, Mrs. Mary Williams wrote the 
" Columbus Times," of Georgia, a letter, from which 
I quote: "The ladies are engaged in ornamenting and 
improving that portion of the city cemetery sacred to 
the memory of our gallant Confederate dead. 
We beg the assistance of the press and the ladies 
throughout the South to aid us in the effort to set apart 
a certain day to be observed, from the Potomac to the 
Rio Grande, and to be handed down through time as a 
religious custom of the South, in wreathing the graves 
of our martyred dead with flowers." All our cities, 
towns and hamlets shared in the honour of originating 
Memorial Day, for, throughout the fair land of Dixie, 
soon as flowers began to bloom, her people began to 
cover graves with them; and the North did likewise. 

In reading the recently published "History of the 
Confederated Memorial Associations of the South," I 
am newly impressed with the devotion of Southern 



MEMORIAL DAY 409 

women, their promptness, energy and resourcefulness in 
gathering from hillside and valley their scattered dead 
and providing marked and sheltered sepulture and 
monuments when there was so little money in their land. 
I am impressed, too, with the utter lack of sectional 
bitterness in this volume, which consists chiefly of unpre- 
tentious reports of work done. Here and there is a 
word of grateful acknowledgment to former foes for 
aid rendered. The simple records throb with a deep 
human interest to which the heart of the world might 
make response. 

At a meeting of the Atlanta Memorial Association, 
May 7, 1897, Mrs. Clement A. Evans offered a reso- 
lution providing for concert of action among State 
Associations on questions relating to objects and pur- 
poses in common. Before long, this movement was 
absorbed in a larger. One of the latest formed local 
associations was at Fayetteville, Arkansas, where war's 
end found *' homes in ashes, farms waste places " and 
" every foot of soil, marked by contest, red with blood " ; 
six long years of care and toil passed before the women 
found time for organised work. Yet from this body, 
not large in numbers nor rich in treasury, sprang the 
measures — Miss Garside (afterwards Mrs. Welch) sug- 
gesting — which resulted in the organisation. May 30, 
1900, in the Gait House, Louisville, Kentucky, of the 
Confederated Southern Memorial Associations with 
Mrs. W. J. Behan, of New Orleans, President. In 
1903, Mrs. Behan, in the name of the order, thanked 
Senator Foraker of Ohio for bringing before Congress a 
bill for an appropriation for marking Confederate 
graves in the North, a bill Congress passed without 
delay. 

As Ladies' Memorial Associations developed out of 
the war relief societies, so the United Daughters of the 



4IO DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Confederacy grew out of Memorial Associations and 
Ladies' Auxiliaries to the United Confederate Veterans. 
Immediate initiative came from " Mother Goodlett," 
of Nashville, Tennessee, seconded by Mrs. L. H. 
Raines, of Savannah, the " Nashville American " aiding 
the movement by giving It great publicity; the U. D. C. 
was organized at Nashville In the fall of 1894. Of the 
United Confederate Veterans, a member of the Asso- 
ciation tells me : " The Ku Klux — not the counterfeit, 
but the real Ku Klux working under the code of For- 
rest — was the Confederate soldier protecting his home 
and fireside In the only way possible to him. General 
Forrest disbanded the order; then, for purely memorial, 
historical, benevolent and social purposes, Confederate 
Veteran Camps came Into existence, springing up here 
and there without concert of action; presently they 
united," the federation being effected In New Orleans, 
June 16, 1889, by representatives of about fifty camps, 
General John B. Gordon in command. There are now 
some 1,600 camps with 30,000 members. Of about 
300,000 Confederates at the end of the war, this 30,000 
Is left — " the thin, gray line." 

When our veterans have gone North a-vlsiting, the 
North has been unsparing in honour and hospitality. 
Our old gray-jackets give some illustrations like this. 
Two, walking Into a Boston fruit store, handed the 
dealer a five-dollar bill to be changed In payment of 
purchases, and received it back with the words: "It 
cannot pass here." A veteran laid down silver. " That 
Is no good." Concerned lest all his money be counter- 
feit, the gray-jacket said to his comrade: "May be 
you have some good money." The comrade's wealth 
was refused; but in opening his purse, he revealed a 
Confederate note. "Now," said the smiling store- 
keeper, "If I could only changej:hat .into jhe same kind 



MEMORIAL DAY 411 

of money, it would pass. That's the only good money 
in Boston today." 

The object and influence of these Confederate orders 
are primarily "memorial and historical"; they occa- 
sionally transcend these — as when, for instance, a few 
years ago, U. C. V. camps passed resolutions condemn- 
ing lynching. Their tendency is the reverse of keeping 
bitter sectional feeling alive. It is their duty and office 
to see to it that new generations shall not look upon 
Southern forefathers as " traitors," but as good men 
and true who fought valiantly for conscience's sake, even 
as did the good men and true of the North. While 
the Daughters of the American Revolution, a larger 
and richer body, are worthily engaged in rescuing Revo- 
lutionary history from oblivion, it is the no less patriotic 
care of the Confederate orders, whose members are 
active in Revolutionary work also, to preserve to the 
future landmarks and truths about the War of Seces- 
sion. Upon Memorial Hall, New Orleans, the Con- 
federate relic rooms at Columbia and Charleston; the 
"White House," Montgomery; the Mortuary Chapel, 
"Old Blandford," Petersburg; the Confederate 
Museum, Richmond; other relic rooms; and monu- 
ments and tablets scattered throughout the South; the 
work of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society; 
the Battle Abbey to be erected in Richmond for recep- 
tion of historic treasures; — upon these must American 
historians rely for records of facts and for object 
lessons in relics that would have been lost but for the 
patient and faithful endeavours of these orders. 

Mrs. Joseph Thompson, in welcoming the Daughters 
of the American Revolution to Atlanta during the Expo- 
sition of 1895, commended in the name of the South, 
the "broadening and nationalising influence" of the 
order. To no other one agency harmonising the sec- 



412 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

tlons does our country owe more than to patriotic socie- 
ties. In i866j Northern and Southern women found 
their first bond of reunion in the Mount Vernon Asso- 
ciation, which began in 1853, as a Southern movement, 
when the home and tomb of Washington were for sale 
and Ann Pamela Cunningham, of South Carolina, called 
upon America's women to save Mount Vernon, won 
Edward Everett to lecture for the cause, coaxed legis- 
lators, congressmen and John Washington to terms, and 
rested not until Mount Vernon belonged to the Nation ; 
during the war it was the one spot where men of both 
armies met as brothers, stacking arms without the gates; 
Miss Cunningham held her regency, and Mrs. Eve, of 
Georgia, Mme. Le Vert and the other Southern Vice 
Regents continued on the Board with women of the 
North. In 1889, when the tomb of Washington's 
mother was advertised for sale, Margaret Hetzel, of 
Virginia, appealed successfully through the " Washing- 
ton Post" to her countrywomen to save it to the Nation. 
The founders. In 1890, of the Daughters of the Amer- 
ican Revolution were Eugenia Washington of Virginia, 
Mary Desha of Kentucky, Ellen Hardin Walworth of 
Virginia and Kentucky ancestry; a most active officer 
was Mary Virginia Ellett Cabell, of Virginia. The 
First Regent of the New York City Chapter was a Vir- 
ginian, Mrs. Roger A. Pryor. Flora Adams Darling, 
widow of a Confederate officer, had a large hand in 
originating the order and founded that of the Daughters 
of the Revolution and the Daughters of the United 
States, 1 8 1 2. The daughter of the Secession Governor 
of South Carolina, Mrs. Rebecca Calhoun Pickens 
Bacon, started the D. A. R. In her State, delivering 
seven flourishing chapters to the National society. The 
daughter of General Cook, C. S. A., Mrs. Lawson Peel, 
of Atlanta, is a power in D. A. R. work. The present 




MRS. ROGER A PRYOR 



MEMORIAL DAY 413 

National Regent, Mrs. Donald McLean, Is a Mary- 
lander and, therefore, a Southerner, as Mrs. Adlai E. 
Stevenson, one of her predecessors, avowed herself to 
be in part if her Kentucky and Virginia ancestry counted. 
In no movement of patriotism, in no measures promot- 
ing good feeling, has the South been unrepresented. 

"Mary, when I die, bury me in my Confederate uni- 
form. I want to rise a Confederate." So said to his 
wife Dr. Hunter Maguire, the great Stonewall's Sur- 
geon-in-Chief, a short time before his death. He was 
no less true to the living Union because he was faithful 
to the dead Confederacy. Visitors used to love to see 
General Lee at the Finals of Washington College in 
his full suit of Confederate gray; it became him to 
wear it in the midst of the draped flags and stacked arms, 
for while he was teaching our young men to love our 
united country and to reverence the Stars and Stripes, he 
did not want them to fail in reverence to the past. None 
can want us so to fail. Mrs. Lizzie George Henderson, 
President of the U. D. C, says in the " Confederate 
Veteran": "Wherever there is a chapter North or 
West, our Northern friends are so kind and help so 
much that it brings us closer together as one people." 

The thought of her who was " Daughter of the Con- 
federacy" is inseparable from my text. One afternoon 
Matoaca and I called on Miss Mason at her quaint old 
house in Georgetown, D. C, a place of pilgrimage for 
patriotic Southerners. We sat on the little back porch 
which is on a level with Miss Emily's flower-garden, and 
she gave us tea in little old-fashioned cups, pouring It 
out of a little old-fashioned silver tea-pot that sat on 
a little old-fashioned table. She and Matoaca fell to 
talking about Mr. Davis. 

" I shall never forget him as I saw him first," said 
Miss Emily, " a young lieutenant In the United States 



414 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Army, straight as an arrow, handsome and elegant. It 
was at the Governor's Mansion in Detroit; my young 
brother was Governor of Michigan, the State's first 
Executive; Lieutenant Davis was our guest; the Black 
Hawk War, in which he had greatly distinguished him- 
self, was just ended, and he was bringing Black Hawk 
through the country. I was much impressed with the 
young Lieutenant. I watched his career with interest. 
I met him again when he was a member of President 
Pierce's Cabinet. He made a very able Secretary of 
War. 

" Strange how events turn, that it should have been 
Mr. Davis who sent General McClellan (then Colonel) 
and General Lee (then Colonel) to the Crimea to study 
the art of war as practised by the Russians. General 
McClellan's son, now Mayor of New York, has said 
that his father had ample opportunity to form unbiassed 
opinion of the Secretary, as he spent much time in 
Washington before and after his mission to Russia and 
was in close touch with Mr. Davis. He quoted his 
father as saying: ' Colonel Davis was a man of extraor- 
dinary ability. As an executive officer, he was remark- 
able. He was the best Secretary of War — and I use 
best In Its widest sense — I ever had anything to do 
with.'" 

" I like ' Little Mac ' for saying that and his son for 
repeating it. 'Little Mac' fought us like a gentleman. 
When his son runs for the Presidency perhaps I shall 
urge everybody to vote for him," said Matoaca. 

"Unless a Southerner runs," I suggested. 

" Alas ! When will a Southerner be President of the 
United States? I heard Mr. Davis make his famous 
speech bidding farewell to the Senate when Mississippi 
seceded. It was the most eloquent thing I ever listened 
to! All the women — and even men — were in tears. 



MEMORIAL DAY 415 

Senators went up to him and embraced him. I saw 
Mr. Davis in Richmond as President of the Confed- 
eracy. I saw him in prison ; His Eminence, the Cardi- 
nal, secured me permission. He was very thin and 
feeble, but he rose in his old graceful manner and 
offered me his seat, a little wooden box beside his bed, 
a small iron one. The eyes of the guard were on us all 
the time. General Miles came and looked in. I asked 
Mr. Davis if I could do anything for him. He said 
he would like some reading matter. I had had some 
newspapers, but had not been permitted to bring them 
in. I was allowed to remain only a few moments. 

" I next saw him in Paris. I am so glad to have that 
memory of him. So many Southerners came abroad in 
those days. During reconstruction the procession 
seemed endless ! While in Rome I introduced so many 
Southerners to Pope Pius IX. that His Holiness used to 
call me ' L'Ambassadrice die Stid.' Mr Davis was 
much feted in France, as he had been in England. 
While he was at Mr. Mann's in Chantilly, Judah P. 
Benjamin came from London to see him. Mr. Benja- 
min was delightful company. I was at Mr. Charles 
Carroll's when Mr. Davis was entertained there. I 
recall one dinner when the Southern colony flocked 
around him in full force and played a game on him. 
You know of his wonderful memory and wide reading. 
We laid our heads together before he came in and 
studied up puzzling quotations to trip him. But the 
instant one of us would spring couplet, quatrain or 
epigram on him, he would answer with the author. He 
perceived our friendly conspiracy and entered merrily 
into the spirit of it. I alone tripped him — with some- 
thing I had read in early childhood. I am glad to have 
this happy memory of Mr. Davis. Otherwise I should 
always be seeing him as he looked in prison." 



4i6 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

Mr. and Mrs. Davis came to Paris for their young 
daughter, Winnie, who was under Miss Emily's care. 
They had left her some years before at school in Carls- 
ruhe. Knowing in the early part of 1881 that Miss 
Mason was travelling in Germany, they wrote her to 
bring Winnie to Paris, where the girl was to abide until 
their arrival, studying music and acquiring Parisian 
graces. When Miss Mason called at Carlsruhe, 
Winnie rushed into her arms joyously : " I am so glad," 
she cried, " to see some one from home I " 

She had many questions to ask; no sooner were they 
alone in their railway compartment than Winnie turned 
to Miss Mason: "At last I see a Southern woman I 
Now I can learn all that happened to my parents just 
after the war, when I was a baby. Miss Em, what did 
Papa do just after the war — just after Richmond fell? 
What happened to my papa then ?" Miss Emily caught 
her breath ! " Winnie, what your papa did not think 
best you should know, I must decline to tell you. You 
will soon see him in France." Winnie took small inter- 
est in acquiring Parisian graces. " Miss Em, what are 
papa's favourite songs?" Miss Mason sought faith- 
fully to turn her attention to chansons of the day and 
to operatic airs in vogue. "But I am only going to 
sing to papa. I am going to the plantation — to Beau- 
voir. How shall I need to sing opera airs there ? Tell 
me, dear Miss Em, the songs my father loves! " 

"When I met her father," Miss Mason says, " I ven- 
tured to question him concerning Winnie's ignorance of 
his prison life, expressing surprise that he had not 
claimed the sympathy of his child. ' I was unwilling to 
prejudice her,' he said, 'against the country to which 
she is now returning and which must be hers. I thought 
that but justice to the child. I want her to love her 
country.' " 




THE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY 

Winnie (Varina Annel, youngest child of Jefferson Davis ; born in 

Richmond, Va., June 27, 1S64, and died at Narragansett Pier, 

R. I., September 18, 1S95. General John B. Gordon 

gave her the above title by which she was known. 



MEMORIAL DAY 417 

Years later, in Georgia, Veterans gathered to hear 
her father speak, greeted Winnie's appearance with 
ringing cheers. General John B. Gordon, placing his 
hands on her shoulders as he drew her forward, said: 
" Comrades ! here is our daughter, the Daughter of the 
Confederacy! " She lived much in the North and died 
there. An escort from the Grand Army of the Republic 
bore her remains from the hotel at Narragansett Pier 
to the railway station; in New Yorlc, a Guard of 
Honour from the Confederate Veterans and the 
Southern Society received her and brought her to Rich- 
mond, and Richmond took her own. North, South, 
East and West sent flowers to deck the bier of the 
Daughter of the Confederacy, and the North said: 
"Let us be brothers today in grief as we were only 
yesterday brothers-in-arms at Santiago." 

Men In blue followed Gordon, Fitzhugh Lee and 
Joe Wheeler to their graves; Joe Johnston and 
Buckner were Grant's pall-bearers. Our dead bind us 
together. The voices of Lee, our Beloved, Davis, our 
Martyr, Stephens, our Peacemaker, Grady, our Orator, 
of Hampton, Gordon and all their noble fellowship, 
have spoken for true Unionism ; blending with theirs is 
the voice of Grant, In his last hours at McGregor, the 
voice of McKinley in Atlanta, the voice of Abraham 
Lincoln, as, just before his martyrdom, he stood pity- 
ingly amid the ruins of Richmond. 

When President McKinley declared that the Con- 
federate as well as the Federal dead should be the 
Nation's care, he said the right word to "fire the 
Southern heart," albeit our women were not ready to 
yield to the government their holy office. The name of 
Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, Is a house- 
hold word In the South because of his tributes to Lee 
when Virginia thought to place Lee's statue In Wash- 



4i8 DIXIE AFTER THE WAR 

ington. The names of Col. W. H. Knauss, of Colum- 
bus, and W. H. Harrison, of Cincinnati, and of others 
of the North should be, for the pious pains they have 
taken to honour our dead who rest in Northern soil. 
In Oakwoods Cemetery, Chicago, stands the first Con- 
federate Monument erected in the North; the Grand 
Army of the Republic, the Illinois National Guards, the 
City Troop, the Black Hussars, took part with the Con- 
federate Veterans in its dedication. After Katie Cabell 
Currie, of Texas, and her aides had consecrated the 
historic battery given by the Government, the Guards 
paid tribute by musket and bugle to Americans who died 
prisoners at Camp Douglas. A sectional bond exists 
in the National Park Military Commission, on which 
Confederate Veterans serve with Grand Army men; 
General S. D. Lee, Commander-in-Chief of the U. C. V., 
is Chairman of the Vicksburg board of which General 
Fred Grant is a member. When Judge Wilson on 
behalf of Bates' Tennesseeans presented the Confederate 
Monument at Shiloh to the Commission, General Basil 
Duke accepted it in the name of the Nation. 

When President Roosevelt and Congress sent Dixie's 
captured battle-flags home, the Southern heart was fired 
anew. In all our history no more impressive reception 
was given to a President than when on his recent visit 
to Richmond, Mr, Roosevelt was conducted by a guard 
of Confederate Veterans in gray uniforms to our historic 
Capitol Square. In other Southern cities he found 
similar escort. Earlier, when he visited Louisville, a 
Confederate guard attended him. General Basil W. 
Duke, who followed Mr. Davis's fortunes so faithfully, 
being on conspicuous duty. 

True to her past, the South Is not living In It. A 
wonderful future Is before her. She Is richer than was 
the whole United States at the beginning of the War 



MEMORIAL DAY 419 

of Secession ; in a quarter of a century her cotton pro- 
duction has doubled, her manufactures quadrupled. In 
one decade, her farm property increased in value twenty- 
six per cent, her manufacturing output forty-seven; her 
farm products nearly one hundred. Her railroad and 
banking interests give as strong indications of her vig- 
orous new life. Immigrants from East and West and 
North and over seas are seeking homes within her bor- 
ders. The South is no decadent land, but a land where 
" the trees are hung with gold," a land of new orchards 
and vineyards and market-gardens; of luscious berries 
and melons; of wheat and corn and tobacco and much 
cattle and poultry; of tea-gardens; and rice and sugar 
plantations and of fields white with cotton for the cloth- 
ing of the nations. She is the land of balm and bloom, 
of bird-songs, of the warm hand and the open door. 

I prefaced this book with words uttered by Jefferson 
Davis; I close with words uttered by Theodore Roose- 
velt, in Richmond, which read like their fulfilment: 

"Great though the meed of praise which is due the 
South for the soldierly valor her sons displayed during 
the four years of war, I think that even greater praise 
is due for what her people have accomplished in the 
forty years of peace which have followed. . . . 
For forty years the South has made not merely a coura- 
geous but at times a desperate struggle. Now, the 
teeming riches of mines and fields and factory attest the 
prosperity of those who are all the stronger because of 
the trials and struggles through which this prosperity 
has come. You stand loyally to your traditions and 
memories ; you stand also loyally for our great common 
country of today and for our common flag." 



The End. 



INDEX 



INDEX. 



Abbeville, S. C 56, 58, 61, 84. 

Abbott, Ernest H., 396. 

Abrahams, Captain, 61. 

Adam's Run, 346. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 417. 

Adams, Lucy, 306. 

Adams, Rev. Mr., 362. 

Adger, Mr. Robert, 201. 

Africa, I97- 3ir, 394. 395- 

African Church, Old, Richmond, 
202, 232, 241. 

Agricultural College of Florida, 
308, 

Agricultural College, South Car- 
olina, 180. 

Agricultural Land Scrip, 307- 
308. 

Aiken, ex-Governor William, 85. 

Alabama, 62, 63, 180, 301, 333, 
387. 

Alabama Room, Confederate 
Museum, 220. 

Albany, N. Y., loi. 

" Albany Evening Journal," 160. 

Alcorn, Gov. James Lusk, 317. 

Alexandria, Va., 34. 

Allen, Gov. Henry Watkins, of 
La., 260. 

Ames, Senator Adelbert, 244. 

Anderson, S. C, 365, zil- 

Anderson, General Joseph, 32. 

Anderson, Mary (Mrs. Navarro), 
III. 

Anderson, General Robert, 79. 

Andrews, E. B., 250. 

Appleton, Maj. William, 85. 

Appleton, William H., 304. 

Appomattox, 113. 

Arkansas, 276, 372, 409. 

" Armies of the Potomac and the 
Cumberland," 115. 

Armistead Burt House, Abbe- 
ville, S. C, 56, 84. 

Arthur, Prince, iii, 244. 



Astor House, 135. 

Athens (Ga.), "Maid of," 109. 

Atlanta, Ga., 3, 12, 93, 96, 190, 

192, 411, 417. 
" Atlanta Constitution," The, 387. 
"Atlanta Journal," The, 387. 
Atlanta Memorial Association, 

409. 
Atlantic Monthly, 250, 278. 
Augusta, Ga., 58, 60, 85, 114, 219. 
Aycock, Governor Charles B., N. 

C., 387. 

Bacon, Mrs. Rebecca Calhoun 
Pickens, 412. 

Ball, Washington, 170. 

Baltimore, Md., loi. 

Baltimore Soc. for Liberal Edu- 
cation, etc., 303. 

Bankrupt Law, 174-5. 

Bannister, Anne, 109. 

Bannister, Molly, log. 

Bartlett, General William Fran- 
cis, 112. 

Bates' Tennesseeans, 418. 

Battle Abbey, The, 411. 

Battle for State-House, 353. 

Bayard, Captain, 139-140, 144. 

Bayne, Dr., of Norfolk, 255, 258. 

" Bayonet House," The, 370. 

Bayou la Fourche, 179. 

Beauregarde, General Pierre G. 
T., 160. 

Beckwith, Bishop John Watrus, 
Ga., 304. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 79. 89. 

Behan, Mrs. W. J., 409. 

Bellows, Henry W., 8g. 

Benevolent Land Commission, 
354- 

Benjamin, Judah P., 60, 415. 

Bernard, Meade, 327. 

Betts, Mrs., of Halifax, 192. 

Black, Colonel, 370. 



423 



424 



INDEX — Continued 



Black Hawk, 414. 

Black and Tan Assemblies, 249, 
253, 320, 335, 360, 387, 398. 

Black's and White's (Black- 
stone), 191. 

Blaine, Jas. G., 210. 

Blair, General Francis P., 127, 
128. 

Bland, Aunt Sally, 327. 

Boiling, Tabb, 109. 

Bomford, Colonel, 370. 

Booth, J. Wilkes, 82, 89, 104. 

Boston, 22, 313, 314, 320, 359, 
360, 384, 410. 

Boston Light Infantry, 359. 

Boswell, Thomas W., 226. 

Botts, John Minor, 226. 

Bowery, The, 312. 

Brazil, 157; Emperor of, 158. 

Breckinridge, General John Ca- 
bell, 60, 83. 

Brown, General Orlando, 232. 

Brown, John, R. I., 197. 

Brown, Julius, 58. 

Brown, W. E., 307. 

Brown, William Garrott, 250. 

Brownlow's Machine, Tennessee 
Legislature, 124, 128. 

Brunswick, Va., 326, 331. 

Bryan, Mary E., no. 

Buckner, Milton, 362. 

Buena Vista, 49. 

Bullock, Gov. Rufus B., Ga., 293. 

Bunker Hill Centennial, 359, 360. 

Burgess, J. W., 250. 

Burns, W. A., Dallas, Sarah, 142. 

Burton, General, 237, 239. 

Butler, General B. F., no, 134, 

377- 
Butler, General M. C, 161, 360, 

369- 
Butts and tissue ballots, 289, 290. 

Cabaniss, Betty, 109. 
Cabaniss, Henry, 58. 
Cabell, Mary Virginia EHett, 

412. 
Calhoun, Andrew P., 180. 
Calhoun, Mrs. Andrew P., 180. 
Calhoun, John C, 49, 180. 
Calhoun, Patrick, 180. 
Calhoun, Mayor, of Atlanta, 3, 

96. 



Campbell, Captain Given, 60. 
Campbell, Col. John Allen, 259. 
Campbell, Judge John A., 32, 33, 

34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 63, 78, 

91, 92, 132. 
Campbell, Sir George, 170. 
Camp Douglas, Chicago, 418. 
Camp Grant, 123, 155. 
Canada, 39, 135, 219, 253. 
Canby, General Edward R., 63; 

and Mrs. Canby, 108. 
Candler, Gov. Allen D., Ga., 387. 
Capers, Bishop William, 201. 
Capital, Last of Confederacy, 47. 
Cardoza, F. L., 360. 
Carolina Hall, 365, 369, 370. 
Carolinas, The, 214. 
Carrington, Mr., 125. 
Carroll, Mr. Charles, 415, 
Carroll, Mr.. 329, 330, 
Cary, Colonel, 155. 
Casserly, Senator Eugene, 243, 

244. 
Castle Thunder, 29. 
Catawba Indians, 401. 
Centennial, The, Philadelphia, 

359- 
Chamberlain, Daniel H., 358, 

360, 364, 365, 368, 370, 371. 
Chamberlain, Mrs. Daniel H., 

357. 

Chamblee, Canada, 135. 

Charleston, S. C, 78, 85, 155, 
182, 241, 330, 341, 344, 359, 361, 
368. 

Charleston " News-Courier." 387. 

Charlotte, N. C, 56, 57, 83, 84. 

Charlotte " Observer," 387. 

Chase, C. T., 308. 

Chase, Salmon P., and his 
daughter, Kate, 108. 

Chattanooga, Tenn., 58. 

Chesnut, Mrs. James, no. 

Chew, Miss, 303. 

Chicago, Ills., 22. loi, 313, 399; 
Dedication Confederate Monu- 
ment, 418; Black Hussars, 
City Troop, Confederate Vet- 
erans, Illinois National Guards, 
Grand Army of the Republic, 
418. 

"Chicago Times," 211. 

Chilton, General, 20. 



INDEX — Continued 



425 



Chimborazo Hospital, 16, 17,229. 

Chittenden, Mr. L. E., 89. 

Christian Commission, The, 78. 

Christmas, Washington, 3;^. 

Chubbuck, Rev. F. E'. 135- 

Churches: in Alabama, 133-135; 
Canada, Chamblee, 135; Niag- 
ara, St. Marlv's, 135 ; Louis- 
iana, New Orleans, Christ 
Church and other churches, 
134-135; Mississippi, Vicks- 
burg, 134; Missouri, Lexing- 
ton, 135 ; S. Carolina, Charles- 
ton, St. Michael's, 363 ; Zion 
Presbyterian, 201 ; Columbia 
Trinity, 202 ; Washington St. 
M. E., 4, 201 ; Hampton plan- 
tation Chapel, 202; Plowden 
Weston Chapel, 202; Virginia, 
Richmond, Churches of, 9, 
132 ; Grace, 407 ; Dr. Hoge's, 
9; Northern Methodist So- 
ciety, 108; Old African 
Church, 202 ; St. John's, 405 ; 
St. Paul's, 9, 130, 222. 

Cincinnati, 306, 418. 

" Cincinnati Commercial," The, 
357- 

Citadel Cadets, Charleston, 58. 

City Point, Va., 32, 41. 

Clarke, Gov. Charles, of Missis- 
sippi, 92, 93. 

Clarke, Ellen Meade, 120. 

Clarke. Captain H. M., 61, 62. 

Clay, Clement C, 84, 85. 

Clay, Mrs. Clement C, 85, 94, 
no. 

Clay, Henry, 49. 

Clayton sisters, the, no. 

Cleaves, R. H., 360. 

Clemson College, 181, 366. 

Cleveland's inauguration. Presi- 
dent, 286. 

Cleveland, O., lOl. 

" Clyde," The, 102. 

Cobb, Howell, 129. 

Cocke, Nannie, 109. 

Colfax (Schuyler), Vice-Presi- 
dent, 244. 

Colfax Riot, La., 333. 

Colquhoun, A. R., 395. 

Columbia, "The State," 387. 

Columbia, S. C, 3-6, 12, 16, 19, 



84, 141, 155, 160, 201, 266, 273, 

278, 354, 3^)5, 369, 396, 411- 
Columbia University (N. Y.) 

Studies, 250. 
Columbus, Ohio, loi, 400, 418. 
" Columbus Times," Ga., 408. 
Confederacy, United Daughters 

of the, 409-410. 
Confederate Army, i. 
Confederate Memorial Literary 

Society, 411. 
Confederate Museum, Richmond, 

Va., 60, 126, 225, 411. 
Confederate relic rooms, 411. 
Confederate Scrap-book, Mrs. 

Lizzie Cary Daniel's, 126. 
" Confederate Veteran," The, 

413- 
Confederate Veterans, The 

United, 410, 418. 
Confederated Memorial Associa- 
tions of the South, 409. 
Cooper, Dr. George E., 237. 
Council, W. H., 402. 
Courtney, Major John, 83. 
Cowardin, of " The Dispatch," 

234- 
Cowles, Patty, log. 
Craven, Dr. John J., 221, 224. 
Crittendon, Mrs., 182. 
Crockett, Carpet- Bagger, 316. 
Crozier, Calvin S., 140-141, 377, 

378. 
Crump, W., 226. 
Cuba, 20. 

Culpeper, Va., 186. 
Cummings, Father John A., 128. 
Cunningham, Ann Pamela, 412. 
Currie, Katie Cabell, 418. 
Curry, Dr. J. L. M., 286. 

" Daddy Cain," 362. 

Dahlgren's fleet, 78, 79. 

Dana, Charles A., 41, 103, 131. 

Daniel's Confederate S crap- 
Book. Miss Lizzie Cary, 126. 

Danville, Va., 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 
150, 378. 

Darling, Flora Adams, 412. 

Daughters of the American Rev- 
olution, 411, 412. 

Daughters of the Confederacy, 
411. 



426 



INDEX — Continued 



Daughters of the Revolution, 

412. 
" Daughter of the Confederacy, 

The," Winnie Davis, 413, 4P6- 

417. 
Daughters of the United States, 

1812, 412. 
Davenport, Isaac, 226. 
Davis, Maj. B. K., 135. 
Davis, Jefferson, 9, 32-34, 38, 47- 

57. 59-63, 72, 83-85, 90-91, 94- 

95, 101-104, 130, 132, 202, 219, 

223-225, 233, 237, 239, 240, 241, 

243, 413-418, 419. 
Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, 57, 84, ro2, 

148, 159, 219, 220-222, 224-225, 

229, 237, 408. 
Davis, little Joe, 220, 407-8. 
Davis, Winnie, 57, 95. 
Davis, Williams T., 378. 
Dawson. Judge M. L., 383. 
Deaf and Dumb Asylum, S. C, 

355- 
Decoration Day, 405. 
Delaware Firemen, 231. 
Dennis, General, 366, 369. 
Dents, The, 113, 282. 
Derwent, Va., 159, 219. 
Desha, Mary, 412. 
Devens, General Charles, 344. 
Devens' Division, First Brigade, 

24, 25. 
Devereaux, iii. 
De Witt, Surgeon, 363. 
Dismal Swamp, 330. 
" Dixie " (the song). 43, 63. 
Dodge, Maj.-Gen., 135. 
Douglas, Frederick, 396. 
Drane, Mrs., 169, 170. 
Drummond, John, 326, 330. 
Du Bose, Dudley, 275. 
Du Bose, Mrs., 94. 
Duke, General Basil W., 418. 
Duke's Camp. General Basil, 61. 
Dunning, W. A., 250. 



Educational Fund, N. C, 307. 

Education. Mississippi's Depart- 
ment of. 308. 

Egypt, 157. 

Elder, W. H., Bishop, of 
Natchez, Miss,, 134. 



E'l Dorado, S. C, 341, 346. 

Eliot, Professor C. W., of Har- 
vard, 396. 

Elliott, Speaker, 357, 358, 360. 

Elliott, General Stephen, 156. 

Ellis, Rev. Rufus, 89. 

Ellyson, ex-Mayor J. Taylor, 
205, 286. 

Elzey, General. 57, 58. 

Emory and Wesleyan Colleges, 
Ga., 304. 

Ensor, Dr. J. F., 355. 

Evans, Mrs. Clement A.. 409. 

Evans Wilson, Augusta, no. 

Evaugh, Mr., 361. 

Eve, Mrs. Philoclea, 412. 

Everett, Edward, 412. 

Expatriation, 157, 159. 

Europe, 157. 

Ewell, General, 85. 

E'zzard, Ella, no. 



Farmville, Va., 205. 
Fauquier, Va., 212. 
Faver, David, 57, 58. 
Fayetteville, Ark., 409. 
Federal Prisons, Confederates 

released from, 140. 
Fifteenth Amendment, Grant 

signing, 282. 
Fitz, Rev. Mr., 214. 
Fleming, Walter A., 135, 250, 

278. 
Florida, Agricultural Land Scrip, 

307-308. 
Florida, 214, 301, 307. 391. 
Florida, State House of, 316. 
Florida, " Times-Union," Jack- 
sonville, 387. 
Foraker. Senator, 409. 
Ford's Theatre. 82. 
" Forefathers' Day," 359. 
Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 62, 275, 

410. 
Fort Lafayette, 134. 
Fort Pulaski, 92. 
Fortress Monroe, 92, 102, 103, 

219, 222. 
Fort Warren, 85. 
Foss, Rev. A., 135. 
Freedmen's Bureau, 143, 211, 353. 
Freedmen's Saving Bank, 216. 



INDEX — Continued 



427 



Fullerton, General J. S., 213, 214, 

215. 

Fulton, Rev. Mr., 134. 



Galt House, Louisville, Ky., 409. 
Gamble's Hill, Richmond, 149. 
Gambling parlours, 372. 
Garner, James Wilford, 317. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 79, 

304- 

Garside, Miss (Mrs. Welch), 
409, 

Gary, General, 360. 

Geddings, Dr., 182. 

Geddings, Mrs. Postell, 182. 

Georgia, 109, 120, 206, 269, 275, 
292, 301, 307, 408, 412. 

Georgia Military Institute Bat- 
talion, 58. 

Georgetown, D. C, 413. 

Gettysburg, 38. 

Gibson, Eustace, 257, 258-9. 

Gildersleeve, Dr. J. R., 16. 

Gillem, General Alvan Cullem, 
249, 260. 

Gilmer, General Jerry (Jeremy 
Francis), 125. 

Gillmore, General Quincy Ad- 
ams, 79, 85, 378. 

Girardeau, Rev. Dr., 201. 

Glenrie, Rev. Mr., 202. 

Godfrey, Rev. Dr., 336. 

Goode. E. C, 387. 

Goode, Eugenia, no. 

"Goodlett, Mother" (Mrs. M. 
C.), 410. 

Goodrich, Rev. Dr., 134. 

Goodwin, Mayor of Columbia, 
S. C, 4. 

Gordon, General John B., 410, 
417. 

Grace Church, Richmond, 407. 

Gracebridge, Mrs., 151. 

Grady, Henry Woodfin, 417. 

Graham, John M., 85. 

Grand Army of the Republic, 
405, 417. 418. 

Grant, General Frederick Dent, 
418. 

Grant. General Ulysses S., 23, 
40, 41, 50, 79-80, 82, 85, 90-92, 
97, 113-114. 132, 160, 213, 215, 



224, 260, 274, 282, 301, 308, 

357-358, 365, 368, 371, 377, 417. 
Grant, Mrs. Ulysses S., 82, 107, 

113, 114, 357- 
Gray, Helen, 134. 
Greeley, Horace, 36, 225, 226, 

240, 241, 242. 
Greenbrier White Sulphur 

(Springs), The, 149, 174. 
Greenleaf, Mrs., 135. 
Greensboro, N. C, 55, 56, 61, 

83. 
Greenville, S. C, 378. 
Gregory, Alice, 109. 

Hahn, Governor Michael, 34. 
Hale, Edward Everett, 89. 
Hall, Rev. Dr. Charles H., 222- 

223. 
Halleck, General Henry W., 91, 

92, 114, 125, 127, 377. 
Hamilton, Gov. A. J., Texas, 247. 
Hamilton, " Handsome Tom," 

58. 
" Hampton Day," 360. 
Hampton family freeing slaves, 

182. 
Hampton, Wade, 6, 129, i6o-i6r, 

346, 359, 360-361, 364-365, 368- 

369, 370-371. 417. 
Hampton, Mrs. Wade, 160-161. 
Hampton, Va., 181. 
Hampton Roads Peace Commis- 
sion, 33. 
Hancock, General Winfield Scott, 

260. 
Harby, Mrs. Lee, 182. 
Hardy, Sally, 109. 
" Harper's Weekly," 12, 49. 
Harrison, Burton, 57, 237. 
Harrison, W. H., 418. 
Haskell, Col. Alex. C, 366. 
Haxall house, 112. 
Haxall, Richard Barton, 226. 
Hayes, President Rutherford B., 

371- 
Hayward, 232, 234. 
"Hell Hole Swamp," 354. 
Henderson, Mrs. Lizzie George, 

413. 
Henry. Patrick. 405. 
Herbert, Hilary, 127, 142, 
Hetzel, Margaret, 412. 



428 



INDEX — Continued 



Heyward, Gov. Duncan C, of 

S. C, 387. 
Hill, Augusta, no. 
Hill, Mr., 185-187. 
Hodges, of Princess Anne, 216, 

257- 
Hoge, Rev. Dr. Moses D., 9. 
Holden, Gov. William Woods, 

N. C., 275, 307. 
Hollywood, Richmond, 405, 406, 

407. 
Hollywood Memorial Associa- 
tion, 405. 
Holmes, Professor, 361. 
Honore, Bertha (Mrs. Potter 

Palmer), in. 
Hood, General John B., 3, 60, 

303. 
Howard, General O. O., 216. 
Howell, Miss Maggie, 57. 
Hughes, Mrs. Sarah, 300. 
Hull, Robert W., 93. 
Hunkidory Club, The, 368. 
Hunt. General, 363, 364. 
Hunt, Mrs. Sallie Ward, iii. 
Hunter, General, 277. 
Hunter, R. M. T., 33, 91, 92. 
Huntington, Dr. (Bishop) F. E., 

89. 
Hunton, General Eppa, 116, 283- 

284. 
Huntsville, Ala., 135. 

Illinois, 81. 393. 
Illinois National Guards, 418. 
Indian, The, 393-4, 400, 401. 
Indianapolis, Ind., lOi. 
Ingalls, Senator John G., 391. 
Iowa University Studies, 216. 
Irvin, Charles E., 94. 
Irwinsville, Ga., 95. 

Jackson, D. K., 226, 

James River, Va., 341. 

Jefferson Hotel. Richmond, 399. 

Jelks, Gov. W. D., 387. 

Jewett, Mrs., Stony Creek, 183. 

"John Sylvester," The, 237. 

Johns. Annie E., 18. 

Johns Hopkins U. Studies, 250. 

Johnson. Andrew, 83, 84-85, 90, 

loi, 130, 132, 133, 213, 222, 

224, 247, 248, 325. 



Johnson, Captain, 265, 266. 
Johnson, Reverdy, 135. 
Johnston, Mrs. Marmaduke, 169. 
Johnston, Joseph E., 47, 53, 56, 

57, 60-62, 80-81, 84, 96, 417. 
Jones, Freeman, 327, 329, 332. 

KayE, Colonel, 37. 
Keatley, Colonel J. H., 3. 
Keene, Laura, 82. 
Keiley, Anthony M., 37. 
Kellogg, Gov. W. P., La., 333. 
Kentucky, 220, 300, 412. 
Kilpatrick's troops. General H. 

J., 169. 
King, Grace, no. 
King, Jule (Mrs. Henry Grady), 

109. 
King St., Charleston, 361. 
Kirke's cut-throats, 275. 
Knauss, Colonel W. H., 418. 
Knights of the White Camelia, 

268. 
Knox, Bill, 331. 
Kohn, Mr. August, 182. 
Kohn, Mrs. August, 182. 
Ku Klux, 259, 268, 269-272, 275- 

278, 318, 360, 379, 410. 

La Fourche, 377. 

Lancaster, Ohio, 306. 

La Teche, 377. 

Laurens and Edgefield, 365. 

Lea, Captain, 277. 

Leacock, Rev. Dr., 134-135. 

Leacock sisters. The, no. 

Lee, General Fitzhugh, 171, 417. 

Lee's mother (Anna Maria 

Mason), General Fitzhugh, 

20. 
Lee, General Robert E., 9, 43, 50, 

67-68, 70-72,89, 90-92, 97, 129, 

130, 136, 159, 161, 174, 181, 303, 

305, 413-414, 417- 
Lee, Mrs. Robert E., 20, 47, 50, 

70, 159, 181, 219, 303. 
Lee's surrender, 50, 53. 62. 
Lee, General Sidney Dill, 418. 
Lee, General Rooney (W. H. 

F.), his sweetheart, 109. 
Lee, Susan Pendleton, 197. 
Leland, J. P., Mr., 348. 
" Leslie's Weekly," 385. 



INDEX — Continued 



429 



Letcher, Gov. John, 35. 

Lett, J. P., William, 326, 329, 

331. 

Le Vert, Mme. (Octavia Wal- 
ton), no, 412. 

Lewis, Colonel, 241. 

Lewis, Dr., 326. 327, 328, 330, 331. 

Lexington, N. C, 169. 

Lexington, Va., 159, 162. 

Libby Prison, 20, 29, 91, 92. 

Liberty Hall, A. H. Stephens' 
mansion, 93. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 23, 29-43, 56, 
57. 78, 79-89, 90, 91. 96-97, lOl, 
130, 132, 133, 247, 264, 282, 305, 

377, 417- 

Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, 81, 107. 

Lincoln, Robert, 80. 

Lincoln, " Tad," 30, 31. 

Lindsay, Lewis, 255, 256. 

Little Rock, Ark., 372. 

Logan, General John A., 405. 

London, Bishop of, 134. 

Longfellow's sister, Mrs. Green- 
leaf, 135. 

Louisiana, 80, 204, 250, 260, 268, 
276,_ 281, 307, 333, 371, 372. 

Louisiana State Lottery, S7~- 

Louisville " Courier - Journal," 
396. 

Louisville, Ky., in, 409, 418. 

Lowndes Co., Miss., 318. 

Loyal or Union League, 263-265, 
273, 277-278, 326, 334. 

Ls, The Four, 264. 

Lynchburg, Va., 35. 

Lyons, James, 226, 237. 

Lyons, Judge, 15. 

Lyons, W. H., 226. 



McCaw, Dr. James B., 16, 17, 

67. 113- 
McCaw, William, 67-68. 
McClellan, General George B., 

303. 414- 
McClellan, George B., Mayor of 

New York, 414. 
McClellan, Mr., 347. 
McClellanville, S. C, 347- 
McCulloch, Hugh, 221. 
McDonald, Senator Joseph Ew- 

ing, 290. 



McFarland, W. H., 226. 
McGiflfen, 326, 327, 330, 331. 
McGregor, Vance, 335, 337, 338. 
McKinley, President William, 

89, 338, 417. 
McLaws, General Lafayette, 60. 
McLean, Mrs. Donald, 413. 
McPherson, General James B., 

133, 134. 
McVeigh, Dr., 238, 239. 
McVeigh vs. Underwood, 238. 
Mackey, E. W., Speaker, 365, 

367, 368, 370. 
Mackey, Rep. candidate, 289. 
Mackey House, 366. 
Macon, Ga., 85, 304. 
Magill, Bishop, 18. 
Magruder, General J. B., 62, 155, 

160. 
Maguire, Dr. Hunter, 113, 114. 
Mahone, General William, 288. 
Mallory, Colonel, 259. 
Mallory, Stephen Russell, Sec. 

Navy, 60. 
Manchester, Va., 30. 
Mann's, Mr.. in Chantilly. 

France, 415. 
" Marching Through Georgia," 

305-307. 
■' Marriage Order," The, 124-127, 

128. 
Marston, Mrs. Dr., 135. 
Martin, Mr., of Tenn. Leg., 212. 
Martin, Mrs. Henry, 361. 
Martin, Rev. William, 4, 201, 

356. 
Martin, Isabella D., 160, 356. 
Mason, Miss Emily V., 18, 159, 

219, 303. 413-417. 
Mason, Gov. Stevens Thomson, 

of Michigan, 414. 
Massachusetts, 48, 150, 232, 233, 

243, 244, 395-399, 417. 
Matoaca, 11, 21-23, 42, 67-69, 77, 

82, 108, 113, 123, 129, 147, 173, 

413. 
Maury, General Dabney Hern- 
don, 62, 63. 
Maury, Mr., 203. 
Mayflower, The, 231. 
Mayo, Mayor Joseph, 15, 16, 24, 

91, 232. 



430 



INDEX — Continued 



Meade, General George G., 54, 
114, 120, 378. 

Meade, Julia, Mary and Marion, 
109. 

Meade, Mary, ill. 

Means, Celina E., 274. 

Mecklenburg, Va., 387. 

Memminger, Mr. and Mrs. 
Charles G., 51. . 

" Memorial Associations of the 
South, History of the Confed- 
erated," 408. 

Memorial Day, 405. 

Memorial Hall, New Orleans, 411. 

Meredith, Captain, 191. 

Meredith, John A., 226, 

Meredith, Judge, 15. 

Meredith, Mrs., of Brunswick, 
190. 

Meridian, Miss., 63. 

Mexico, 35, 49, 157, 221, 260. 

Michigan, 414. 

Miles, General Nelson A., 222, 
223, 415. 

Milledgeville, Ga., 209. 

Minnegerode, Rev. Dr. Charles, 
9, 18, 131, 222, 22s. 

Minor, Judge, 219, 220. 

" Missionary Record," The, 362. 

Mississippi, 62, 244, 247. 249, 268, 
276, 290, 301, 308, 317, 395. 

Mississippi, Bishop of, 319. 

Mississippi, 134. 

Missouri, 135. 

Missouri, 127, 128, 135, 285. 

Molineux, General Edward Les- 
lie. 61. 

Money, facts and incidents about, 
51-52, 61-62, 77. 140, 143, 148, 
149, 150, 155. 168, 175, 185. 186, 
187, 188, 203, 212, 214, 229, 258, 
265-266, 291-292, 293, 302, 304, 
307, 317, 320, 326, 336-337. 344- 
345. 353, 355-356, 372, 409, 410, 
411, 419. 

Monroe Co., Miss., 317. 

Montague, Gov. A. J., Va., 387. 

Monterey, Mexico, 49. 

Montgomery, Ala., the "White 
House," 411. 

Montreal, Canada, 224. 

Monumental, The, 108. 

Mordecai, iii. 



Morgan, John H. (his com- 
mand), 61. 

Morrisey, John, 254. 

Morrison, Mrs. Edwin, iir. 

Morrison, Prof. W. S., 181. 

Morse, Samuel F. B., 135. 

Mortimer, Judge. 334, 336. 

Moses, Jr., Franklin J., 307, 351, 
353, 35,5, 358. 

Moses, Raphael, J., 61. 

Mount Vernon, 412. 

Mount Vernon Association, iii, 
412. 

Murray, Dr., 116. 

Myers, Gustavus A., 226. 

Nash, Beverly, 354, 355. 356. 

" Nashville American," The, 410. 

Nashville, Tenn., 410. 

Nassau Island, 94. 

Nathan, Charles, 158. 

" Nation," The, 385. 

National Park Military Commis- 
sion, 418. 

National Political Aid Society, 
229, 233. 

Newberry, S. C, 140-1, 377. 

New England, 48, 210, 311. 

New England Society, 359. 

New Grenada, Central America, 

37- 
New Orleans, 3, 12, no, 134-135, 

158, 241, 268, 366, 369, 372, 377, 

409, 410, 411. 
Newspapers, 135. 
New York, 22, loi, 135, 151, 263, 

307, 312, 313, 371, 384, 393, 395. 
New York Custom House, 89. 
"New York Herald," The, 71. 

104, 240, 349. 
New York " News," 306. 
New York, Old Guard of, 359, 

361. 
New York "Times," 210. 
New York "Tribune," The, 48, 

349, 350. 
" New York World," The, 240. 
Niagara, Canada. 135. 
Nichols, Gov. Francis T., La., 

37^- 
North American Review, 377, 

385. 395- 
North Anna River, 171. 



INDEX — Continued 



431 



North Carolina, 80, 96, 210, 247, 
270, 271, 274, 307, 326, 330, 2^6, 
408. 

Norwood, Rev. Dr., 405. 

Nunan, Captain, 209. 

Oakwood, Richmond, 405. 
Oakwood Memorial Association, 

405. 
Oakwoods, Chicago> 418. 
Oath of Allegiance, The, 37-38, 

70-71. 91-92, 124-125, 128. 
Oath, The Test, 127, 128, 249, 

259, 260, 325. 
O'Connell, Father, 5. 
O'Conor, Charles, New York, 

224, 239. 
Ohio, 409. 

Old Bank, Washington, Ga., 56. 
" Old Blanford," Petersburg, 

Va.. 411. 
Old Guard, of New York, 359. 
Old Sweet Springs, Va., 149. 
Orangeburg, S. C, 141. 
Ord, General E. O. C, 41, 42, 69, 

91, 92; and Mrs. Ord, 112. 
Orphan Asylum, Colored, 354. 
Osband, General, 93. 
Osborne. Betty and Jeannie, 109. 
Ould, Judge, 126, 2T,7- 239. 
Ould, Mattie, 109. 
" Outlook," The, 396, 398. 

Page, Betty and Lucy, 109. 

Page, Mrs., 169. 

Pale Faces, 268. 

Palmore's, Va., 159. 

Paris, France, 415. 

Parker, W. T., 277. 

Parks. H. B., 402. 

Parrish, John, 328, 330. 

Patrick, General Afersena R., 21, 

69, 92. 
Patti, Adelina, 202. 
Paul, D'Arcy, iii. 
Payne, Lewis, 82, 104. 
Peabody Fund, 286, 304. 
Peel, Mrs. Lawson. 412. 
Pendleton, General and Mrs., 

162-163. 
Pendleton Club, S. C, The, 360. 
Penn, J. Garland. 402. 
Penrose, Major, 30. 



Perry, Gov. Benj. F., S. C, 143, 

144, 260, 277, 378. 
Petersburg, 27, 4°. 43. 108, 109, 

129, 160, 205. 
Petersburg " Index-Appeal," 160. 
Peyster, Lieutenant de, 12. 
Philadelphia, Pa., loi, 163, 263, 

359- 
" Philadelphia Inquirer," 221. 
Philippines, 20, 306. 
Phillips, Wendell, 102. 
"Picayune," The, no. 
Pickens County men, 360. 
Pickett, Gen. Geo. E., 38. 
Pierce's Cabinet, President, 414. 
Pierce, Paul Skeels, 216. 
Pierpont, Gov. F. H., 34, 92, 241, 

255 ; and Mrs. Pierpont, 108. 
Pike, Mr. J. S., of Maine, 371. 
Pinckney, Captain Thomas, 341, 

343-347, 349- 
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth 

(of the Revolution), 201, 342. 
Pius IX., Pope, 415. 
" Planting officials," The, 214. 
Piatt, Mrs. William H., iii. 
Pocotaligo, S. C, 378. 
Polk, Bishop Leonidas and Mrs., 

179- 
Polk, Dr. W. M., 179. 
Polk, President James K., 48. 
Poole, Maggie, no. 
Pope, General John, 301. 
Pope, Mrs. Sallie Ewing, iii. 
Poppenheim, Miss M. B., 182. 
Porter, Admiral David D., 30, 

40, 41. 
Portridge, Sophia, in. 
Potter, Bishop Horatio, 135. 
Potter, Mrs. James Brown, no. 
Powell, Dr., 330, 331. 
Powhatan, Va., 129. 
Prescott, Addie, no. 
Preston, Cobb, 335. 
Preston, General William, 182. 
Price, Rev. Dr., 405. 
Prince Arthur, in, 244. 
Proctor, Rev. Dr., 405. 
Pryor, Mrs. Roger A., no, 412. 

Raines, Mrs. L. H., 410. 
Raleigh, N. C, 84, 114, 140, 175, 
408. 



432 



INDEX—Cont'uiucd 



Raleigh, Mr. Bennett's house 
near, 84. 

Ralls, General 95. 

Randall, James R., 85. 

Randolph, Bishop Alfred Magill, 
205. 

Randolph, Senator Theodore F., 
290. 

Randolph, Uncle, 12, 23, 35, 113, 
133- 

Raymond, Henry J., 31. 

Raymond, Miss, 22. 

Reagan, John H., 59. 

Red Shirts, The, 360, 368. 

Reed, William B., 224, 239. 

Reid, Whitelaw, 349. 

Revels, Hiram R., 243, 244. 

Rhett, Mrs., 20. 

Richardson, Mrs. Ida B., no. 

Richmond, Va., 3, 9-25, 37, 62- 
63, 69, 72, 91, 92, 109, III, 123, 
139, 150, 185, 187, 205, 229, 231. 
240, 241, 255, 399, 405-408, 417- 
418. 

Richmond Blues, The, 407. 

Richmond College, 202. 

Richmond Theatre, 107. 

Richmond " Times-Dispatch," 
25, 387. 

Rifle Clubs, The, 360, 363, 364, 
368, 370. 

Riots : Brunswick, 332-333 ; Cow- 
boy, 362; Charleston, 241, 363; 
Colfax, 333; E'llenton, 349; 
Hamburg, 362 ; Little Rock, 
371-372; New Orleans, 241, 
372; Richmond, 229, 234, 241. 

Ripley, General Edward H., 24- 

25, 131. 
Robertson, Dr. and Mrs., 57, 

59, 60; Kate Joyner Robertson 

(Mrs. Faver), 59, 61; Willie 

Robertson, 59. 
Rockett's, 29. 
Rollins, Misses, 356. 
Rome, Italy, 415. 
Roosevelt, President Theodore, 

338, 418, 419. 
Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, 

S. C, 140. 
Rousseau, General, 135. 
Roxmere, 334. 



Ruger, General Thomas How- 
ard, 365. 368, 370. 

Ryland, Rev. Dr. Robert. 202- 
203. 

Sage, B. R, 307. 

Saint, Captain, 4th Iowa, 93. 

St. John, General I. M., 59. 

St. Michael's bells, 363. 

Santo Domingo, 197. 

Salisbury, N. C, 56. 

Santee River, The, 341. 

Savannah, Ga., 58, 135, 155, 410. 

Savannah " News," The, 387. 

Saxton, General and Mrs. Rufus, 
119, 120; General, 143. 

Schell, Augustus, 226. 

Schley, Mr., Augusta, Ga., 219. 

Schofield's Code for Freedmen, 
210. 

Schofield, General J. M., 232, 
234, 255, 259, 260, 325, 329, 379. 

Scott, Gov. R. K., S. C, 281, 307, 
351, 370. 

Seaford, U. S. Marshal, 293. 

Sea Islands. The, 79, 341. 

Sears, Dr. Barnas, 304. 

Selma, Ala., 78. 

Seney (George Ingraham), ben- 
efactions, 304. 

" Sentinel," The, 22. 

Sepoy Massacres, 391. 

Sergeant, Miss, of Atlanta, 304. 

Sewanee Review, 250. 

Seward, William H., 82, 378. 

Sharkey, Gov. William L., Miss., 
247. 

Shea, George, 239. 

Shepley, General George F., 11, 
12, 22, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 41, 131. 

Sheppard, J. C., 365. 

" Sheridan's Ride," 305. 

Sherman, General, 3-6, 16, 18, 37, 
50-si, 57, 80, 81, 84, 96, 97, 
IIS, 128, 132, 13s, 182, 190, 202, 
247, 281, 305, 326, 330, 371, 377. 

Shiloh, National Park, 418. 

Sibley, 333. 

Simonton, Judge C. H., 287. 

Simpson, Colonel R. W., 360. 

Simpson, W. S., 366. 

Sing Sing, N. Y., 278. 

Sligo, Lord, 134. 



INDEX-— Continued 



433, 



Sloan, Captain, 125. 

Slocomb, Mrs., no. 

Slocomb family, no. 

Smith, Gerrit, 226, 241, 242. 

Smith, W. B. (author), 395. 

Smith, Gov. William H.. Ala., 
333. 

Smith, Gov. William, 34, 35, 92. 

Smythe, Mrs. A. T.. 182. 

South Carolina, 4-6, 37, 54, 140, 
143, 158, 160-161, 180, 192, 204, 
206, 247, 250, 260, 265. 267, 271, 
273, 276, 289, 317, 348, 359, 370, 
371, 377, 412. 

South Carolina Agricultural Col- 
lege, 180. 

South Carolina, State Univer- 
sity, 355- 

" South Carolina Women in the 
Confederacy," 182. 

Southern Ballot-Box, 281. 

" Southern Cross," Hampton's 
cottage, 160. 

Southern Educational Confer- 
ence, 1905, 396. 

" Southern Opinion," The, 305. 

Southside Virginia, 399. 

Spanish-American War, 312. 

Spencer, C. B., 402. 

Spencer's libels. Senator G. E., 
333. 

Spotswood, The, 108, 237. 

Springfield, Ills., loi. 

Stanton, Edwin M., 41-43, 51, 57, 
80, 82, 90, 92, 96, 97, 132, 223, 
224, 281. 

" State." The Columbia, 387. 

Steedman, General James Bar- 
rett, 213-215. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 33, 55, 
S8, 93. 94. 95. 417- 

Stephens, Judge Linton, 292-293. 

Stephens, Lint, 58. 

Stephens, Dr. Robert G., 163. 

Stevens, Atherton H., 12, 16. 

Stevens Mystery, Yanceyville, N. 
C, 274. 

Stevens. Thaddeus, 242. 

Stevenson, Mrs. Adlai E., 413. 

Stewart, Hon. Charles, 142-143. 

Stimson, William, 386. 

Stoneman, General George, 260, 
325. 



Stoney, Captain, 156. 

Storrs, Rev. Dr. Richard S., 79. 

Stratton, Professor, 385. 

Strong, Major George C, 134. 

Stuart, J. E. 3., 171, 407. 

Sumner, Charles, 81. 

Sumter's anniversary, 79. 

Surratt, Mrs., 104. 

Sutherlin, Major, 47, 48, 52, 53- 

55- 
Sutherlin Mansion, 47, 48, 51, 52, 

56. 
Sutherlin, Mrs., 47, 48, 49, 51, 

52, 53-56. 
" Sun," The New York, 103. 
Swayze, U. S. Commissioner, 

293. 



Taylor, Mrs. Thomas, 182. 
Taylor, General Richard, 62, 63, 

92. 
Teller, Senator Henry Moore, 

290. 
Tennessee, 268, 418. 
Tennesseeans, Bates', 418. 
Terrell, Gov. Joseph M., of Ga., 

387. 
Texas, 62, 142, 160, 215, 247, 260, 

350, 395. 418. 
Texas Ranger, 407. 
Thomas, James, 226. 
Thomas, Judge, 32, 33, 34, 40, 41. 
Thomas, William Hannibal, 385. 
Thompson, Mrs. Joseph, 411. 
Throckmorton, Gov. J. W., 215, 

260. 
Tidewater Virginia, 399. 
Tillinghast, J. A., 395. 
Tilton, Theodore, 79. 
" Times-Democrat," The, New 

Orleans, 387. 
Tissue Ballots, 288. 
Titlow, Captain, 103. 
Todd, Dr. Scott, 58. 
Toombs, General Robert, 57, 59, 

60, 61, 93. 
Toombs, Mrs. Robert, 94, 143. 
Tournaments, 167. 
Traveller, 68, 109. 
Trenholm, G. A., 60, 92. 
Trent River Settlement, 214. 
Trescot, W. H., 143. 



434 



INDEX— Continued 



Triplett, Mary, log. 
Trobriand, General Philippe 

Regis de, 372. 
Trowbridge, Colonel, 141. 
Tucker, John Randolph, 239. 
Tulane University, 304. 
Tupper, Rev. Dr., 60. 
Turner, Henry G., 302, 
Tuskegee, Ala., 181. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin/' 214. 
Underwood, Judge John C, 233, 

239, 241, 242, 253. 
Upton, General, 60, 93. 
Urquhart, Captain David, IIO. 
Urquhart, Mrs. David, no. 
Urquhart, Cora (Mrs. James 

Brown Potter), no. 
Ursuline Convent, 4. 

Valentine's, Stuart, 407. 

Valliant, Theodosia Worthing- 
ton, III. 

Van Alen, General, 42. 

Vance, Betty, iii. 

Vance, Gov. Zebulon B., N. Car- 
olina. 96, 102. 

Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 226. 

Vanderbilt University, 304. 

Van Lew, Miss, 108. 

Vardaman, Gov., of Miss., 387. 

Vest, Senator, 127. 

Vicksburg, Miss., 128; pastors 
of, 133, 134. 418. 

Vincent, Mrs., and Lucy, 265- 
266. 

Virginia, 34-35. 39, 4i, 42, 71, 
80, 115, 139, 161, 170, 214, 232, 
260-269, 285. 305, 326, 341, 379, 
387, 399, 408, 412. 

Wade, Senator Benj. F., 90. 
Walker, George, 172-173. 
Walker, Gov. Gilbert C, Va., 

331- 

Walker-Wells Campaign, 316. 

Walker, J. M., Mayor, of Dan- 
ville. 53. 

Wall, L. G., 327, 328. 

Wallace House, The. 365, 370. 

Wallace, Marshal, 363. 

Wallace, W. H., Speaker, 365, 
366, 367, 368. 



Walworth, Ellen Hardin, 412. 

Warmouth, Henry C, sBi, 307. 

Warwick, Abraham, 226. 

Washington Artillery, N. O., no. 

Washington, Booker T., 402. 

Washington, D. C, 33, 39, 41, 79, 
81, 83, 91, 97, loi, 104, 113, 130, 
185, 187, 221, 225, 234, 243, 248, 
260, 281, 287, 316, 333, 337, 364, 
371, 372, 417. 

Washington, Ga., 57, 59, 60, 94. 

Washington (and Lee) College, 
Lexington, Va., 159, 161, 413. 

Washington and Lee Associa- 
tion, 303. 

Washington, Eugenia, 412. 

Washington, George, 170; Statue 
of, 292 ; tomb of, 412 ; his 
mother's tomb, 412. 

Washington, John, 412. 

Washington, Colonel William, 
360. 

Washington Light Infantry, 
Charleston, 359. 

Washington, Miss, of S. Caro- 
lina, 182. 

"Washington Post," The, 412. 

Watkins, Judge, 205. 

Watkins Neighbourhood, 312. 

Watkins, Mr. and Mrs., 313. 

Webster, Daniel, 49. 

Weems, Colonel, 60. 

Weitzel, Godfrey, 16, 17, 20, 22- 
24, 36, 39-42, 107, 131-133. 377- 

Welch, Mrs. (Miss Garside), 
409. 

Wellington, Mrs. 129. 

Wells, Gov. Henry H., 329. 

Welsh, A., 226. 

West Point, N. Y., 20, 38, 48, 
126. 

West Virginia, 34. 

W. Virginia University Studies, 
250, 278. 

Wharton, Captain. 69, 70. 

Wheeler, General Joe, 94-9S, 102, 
417. 

Wheeless, John F., 62. 

Wherry, Col. W. M.. 259. 

"Whig." The, 24, 39. 41, 42, 107. 

Whipper, W. J., 358, 360. 

White, Airs., of Brunswick, 191. 

White Brotherhood, The, 268. 



INDEX — Continued 



435 



White House, The, Montgom- 
ery, Ala., 411. 

White House, The Davis Man- 
sion, Richmond, 29, 36, 60, 126, 
219, 221, 411. 

White House, The, Washington, 
D. C, 37, 43. 80, 282. 

White League, 268. 

White Rose, Order of the, 268. 

Whitney, Eli, I97- 

Wigfall, Louise (Mrs. Wright), 
no. 

Wilde, General, 143. 

Williams, Mrs. David R., no. 

Williams, Mrs. Mary, 408. 

Wilmer, Bishop, of Alabama, 

Wilmmgton, N. C, 193. 
Wilson, General James H., 85. 
Wilson, Judge S. P., 418. 
Wilson, Senator Henry, 243, 244. 
Wilson, Woodrow, 250. 
Winfield, Miss, 243j 244. 



Wingfield, Rev. J. H. L. (Bishop), 

129. 
Winnsboro, S. C, 6. 
Wise, Captain George, 70, 71. 
Wise, Henry A., 50, 71. 
Wise, Lieutenant, 50. 
Wood, Benjamin, 226. 
Wood's house in Greensboro, 

Col., 56. 
Woods, General William B., 133. 
Wortham. Miss, 125. 
Wright, General Horatio D,, 52, 

S3. 54- _, „ ^ 

Wright, Mary (Mrs. Tread- 
well), III. 

YuLEE, Senator D. L., 92. 
Yulee, Mrs. D. L., no. 
Yankee Landon, 334, 335, 336, 
337, 338. 

Zola, 372. 



7 tr ■v J 



